GIFT   OF 
JANE  K0.SATHER 


^' 


^ 


lit^ 


^ 


0-s 


r 


.LECTUEES  01^ 
GREEK  POETRY 


BY 


J.  W.  MACKAIL 

M.A.,  LL.D. 

SOMETIME  FELLOW  OP  BALLIOL  COLLEGE 
PROFESSOR  OF  POETRY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  OXFORD 


LONGMANS,    GREEN    AND    CO. 

39    PATERNOSTER    ROW,   LONDON 

NEW  YORK,  BOMBAY,  AND  CALCUTTA 

1910 


19 


All  rights  reserved 


VA 


1:5' 


j/^^ 


0  a  new  song,  a  free  song. 

Fresh  and  rosy  red  the  sun  is  mounting  high, 

On  floats  the  sea  in  distant  blue  careering  through  its  channels. 

On  floats  the  wind  over  the  breast  of  the  sea  setting  in  toward  land, 

The  great  steady  wind  from  loest  or  west-hy -south. 

Floating  so  buoyant  mth  milk-white  foam  on  the  toaters. 

But  I  am  not  the  sea  nor  the  red  sun, 

1  am  not  the  wind  with  girlish  laughter, 

Not  the  immense  wind  which  strengthens,  not  the  wind  which  lashes. 
Not  the  spirit  that  ever  lashes  its  own  body  to  terror  and  death, 
But  I  am  that  which  unseen  comes  and  sings,  sings,  sings. 


2n9fii.'^ 


PAGE 

iz 


CONTENTS 

Introduction 

Homer — 

I.  The  Homeric  Question  ....  3 

II.  Homer  and  the  Iliad  ....  23 

III.  The  Homeric  Epic      .  .         .        .         .  49 

The  Lyric  Poets— 

I.  The  Age  op  Freedom:  Sappho   ...  83 

II.  The  Age  op  Concentration:  Simonides      .  113 

Sophocles  .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  139 

After  Athens — 

I.  The  Alexandrians 177 

II.  Theocritus  and  the  Idyl  ....     208 

III.  Apollonius  op  Rhodes  and  the  Komantic 

Epic 239 


a  2 


INTRODUCTION 

The  lectures  contained  in  this  volume  were  given  during 
the  last  four  years  from  the  Chair  of  Poetry  in  the 
University  of  Oxford.  With  these  lectures  is  also  now 
incorporated  the  substance  of  a  paper  read  before  the 
Classical  Association  at  its  General  Meeting  at  Birming- 
ham in  October  1908. 

While  the  lectures  were  planned  in  relation  to  one 
another  as  parts  of  a  single  continuous  scheme,  the 
circumstances  of  their  delivery,  at  long  intervals,  and 
to  an  audience  which  (like  poetry  itself)  is  being 
perpetually  renewed,  implied  a  large  amount  of  re- 
capitulation and  repetition.  In  revising  them  for 
publication,  I  have  thought  it  best  not  to  alter  their 
form  very  materially  in  this  respect ;  and  I  hope  that 
the  amount  of  repetition  still  left  will  not  be  found 
excessive,  while  it  may  serve  to  emphasise  more 
effectively  the  central  ideas  by  which  I  have  been 
guided  throughout,  particularly  as  regards  the  poetical 
value  of  the  Greek  poets,  and  the  way  in  which  Greek 
poetry,  as  poetry,  may  best  be  read  so  as  to  disengage 
its  living  virtue. 

Like  the  lectures  on  English  poets  already  published 
last  year  under  the  title  of  The  Springs  of  Helicon ^  this 
volume  deals  with  one  chapter  in  the  larger  and  more 
comprehensive  study  of  the  Progress  of  Poetry.    That 


X  INTRODUCTION 

study  regards  poetry,  from  first  to  last  and  in  all  its 
contemporary  or  successive  incarnations,  as  a  continuous 
function  of  life,  of  which  it  is  at  once  an  interpretation 
and  a  pattern.  The  pattern  of  life  set  before  the  world 
by  Greece,  the  interpretation  of  life  given  by  the  Greek 
genius,  are  of  unique  value.  To  Greek  poetry  we  owe 
our  most  vital  knowledge  of  both,  and  in  it  both  are 
most  essentially  and  intimately  embodied.  It  therefore 
requires,  as  it  repays,  the  largest  and  most  delicate 
appreciation.  What  I  have  tried  to  do  in  these  lectures 
is  to  disengage  its  essence.  By  regarding  it  as  it  is 
concentrated  in  the  work  of  a  few  great  poets,  I  have 
sought  to  place  its  progress  in  a  clearer  perspective, 
and  to  bring  it  into  a  closer  relation  to  life.  To  do  this, 
on  whatever  scale,  implies  an  amount  of  concentration 
and  rejection  which  lays  a  heavy  strain  on  a  writer. 
His  task  is  not  on  the  one  hand  that  of  a  historian  of 
Greek  literature,  who  sets  out  to  give  an  account  of 
the  whole  poetical  product  of  Hellas  so  far  as  that  is 
extant  or  recorded.  Such  a  task  is  larger ;  it  involves 
for  its  satisfactory  performance  not  only  wide  and 
minute  knowledge,  but  equally  high  gifts  of  insight, 
judgment,  and  proportion.  Yet  it  is  in  a  way  easier, 
because  its  scope  is  defined ;  the  problems  are  those  of 
arrangement  and  handling  rather  than  those  of  organic 
reconstruction.  Nor  on  the  other  hand  is  the  task  that 
of  a  philosophic  enquirer,  "  moving  among  ideas  "  and 
handling  large  abstractions.  For  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  poetry  in  the  abstract;  and  the  study  of  poetry, 
while  it  deals  with  a  continuous  movement  of  the 
creative  and  interpretative  imagination  as  applied  to 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

life,  is  only  real  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  study  of  actual 
poems,  and  is  only  vital  in  so  far  as  it  keeps  close  to 
the  great  poets,  to  poetry  at  its  highest  power.  To 
attain  its  object,  it  must  not  treat  poetry  either  as  a 
mere  matter  of  history  or  as  a  kind  of  imperfectly 
expressed  philosophy.  It  must  regard  and  handle  it 
as  an  interpretation  and  pattern  of  life. 

In  The  Springs  of  Helicon,  I  dealt  with  the  progress 
of  poetry  in  England  as,  in  the  course  of  its  evolution, 
it  took  shape  in  the  work  of  three  great  poets,  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  and  Milton.  In  these  three  poets,  at  long 
intervals,  the  movement  of  poetry  became  as  it  were 
visible  and  incarnate.  Each  absorbed  into  himself,  and 
communicated  to  his  own  age,  and  to  us,  the  effective 
integrated  meaning  of  poetry  as  it  had  then  been 
reached.  The  rest  of  English  poetry,  during  the  three 
centuries  in  question,  places  itself  in  relation  to  them. 
They  supply  key-notes,  points  of  arrival  and  points  of 
departure,  for  the  whole  of  English  poetry  regarded  as 
a  continuous,  progressive,  and  organic  evolution. 

This  volume  of  lectures  proceeds  on  a  somewhat 
analogous  method.  It  does  not  on  the  one  hand  make 
any  attempt  to  give  a  general  history  of  Greek  poetry, 
or  any  complete  review  of  the  work  of  the  Greek  poets ; 
nor  on  the  other  hand  does  it  deal  with  its  subject  by 
abstraction  and  generalisation;  and  it  treats  of  the 
poetical  movement  which  was  part  of  the  life,  and  is 
still  part  of  the  vitalising  force  of  Hellenism,  mainly 
as  that  movement  was  embodied  or  manifested  in  the 
work  of  single  poets. 

In  Greek  poetry,  as  in  the  history  of  the  Hellenic 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

civilisation  itself,  there  are  four  main  epochs.  There 
is  in  the  first  place  the  mediaeval  age,  pre-Hellenic 
rather  than  actually  Greek.  Out  of  it  the  Greek  world 
was  born,  and  we  know  it  as  it  reaches  us  through 
Greece.  It  is  represented  in  poetry  by  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  the  Hellenised  Homer  of  a  Homerised  Hellas. 
The  Homeric  epic  gives  the  pattern  and  interpretation 
of  the  life  of  that  mediaeval  world,  as  it  took  shape  in 
the  poetic  imagination  when  it  had  already  assumed  the 
enchantment  of  distance,  but  still  remained  in  some 
sense  actual  and  alive.  There  is,  next,  the  age  of  the 
creation  of  Hellas — of  the  purely  Hellenic  life,  thought, 
art — interpreted  in  the  terms  of  poetry  by  the  lyrists 
of  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries.  There  is  the  age 
of  Athens,  the  full  Hellenic  midday.  Finally,  there  is 
the  collapse  of  Hellenic  life,  and  its  reconstitution  in 
new  forms  in  a  world  saturated  with  Hellenism ;  and, 
in  that  age,  the  reconstitution  of  poetry  among  the 
Alexandrians  before  its  central  life  passed  from  them 
to  Rome  and  the  West.  Greek  poetry  did  not  then 
cease  to  exist;  it  continued  a  fitful  vitality  for  many 
generations,  and  even  as  late  as  the  tenth  century  of 
our  era  its  faint  notes  may  still  be  heard.  But  as  an 
interpretative  function  of  life  it  may  be  regarded  as 
having  completed  its  orbit  by  the  time  when  the  fresh 
Latin  genius  took  up  the  torch  from  its  weakened 
hands. 

In  the  lectures  on  Homer  which  make  up  the  first 
section  of  this  volume,  I  have  first  given  such  a  brief 
statement  of  what  is  known  as  the  Homeric  Question 
as  was  necessary  in  order  to  indicate,  in  its  general 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

lines,  the  view  taken  of  the  actual  origin  and  nature  of 
the  Homeric  epics.  This  was  necessary  to  clear  the 
ground  for  what  follows,  which  is  an  essay  towards 
the  appreciation  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  themselves 
poetically,  simply  as  poems  of  the  first  rank.  In 
dealing  with  the  lyric  age,  I  have  concentrated  atten- 
tion on  two  poets :  on  Sappho  as  the  greatest  and 
most  fully  representative  poet  of  the  earlier  lyric 
period,  the  age  of  freedom  and  expansion ;  and  on 
Simonides  as  embodying  the  matured  perfection  of  the 
lyric  just  at  the  moment  when  poetry  was  preparing 
to  transmute  itself  into  new  forms,  and  pass  under 
the  ascendancy  of  Athens. 

The  central  Athenian  period,  the  age  in  poetry  of 
the  four  great  dramatists,  is  one  which  has  been  handled 
by  modern  critics  and  scholars  with  equal  copiousness 
and  ability.  Its  position  may  almost  be  taken  for 
granted.  Any  history  of  Greek  poetry,  any  work  which 
purported  to  be  a  full  study  of  the  Greek  poets,  would 
necessarily  deal  with  the  Athenian  dramatists  as  on 
the  first  plane  of  the  canvas.  It  may  seem  strange 
that  any  volume  of  lectures  on  Greek  poetry  should 
omit  Aeschylus  and  Euripides.  But,  for  my  own  specific 
purpose,  I  have  passed  over  both  them  and  Aristophanes, 
as  in  The  Springs  of  Helicon  I  passed  over  Shakespeare 
and  the  whole  Elizabethan  drama.  To  deal  with  them 
perfunctorily  would  be  useless ;  to  deal  with  them  ade- 
quately would  throw  the  whole  scheme  of  the  volume 
out  of  scale.  But  just  as  in  the  fifth  century  before 
Christ  the  whole  life  of  Greek  poetry  was  concentrated 
in  Athens,  so  in  Athenian  poetry  the  specific  Athenian 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

achievement  is  to  be  found  not  in  these  other  poets, 
but  in  Sophocles.  The  concentration  of  poetry  has  to 
be  met  by  concentration  of  criticism.  In  a  single 
lecture  on  Sophocles  I  have  attempted  to  indicate, 
however  slightly,  the  quality  and  value  of  his  poetry 
as  the  full  embodiment  of  the  Athenian  genius,  just 
as  Athens  herself  was  the  central  embodiment  of  the 
genius  of  Hellenism. 

.Greek  poetry,  or  such  of  it  as  is  Greek  in  the  full 
sense,  is  poetry  after  Homer;  it  is  the  poetry  of  a 
world  in  which,  and  for  which,  Homer  effectively  existed 
as  a  dominant  influence.  Even  more  fully  we  may  say 
that  the  remainder  of  Greek  poetry,  from  the  year 
406  B.C.  onwards,  is  poetry  after  Athens.  The  main 
movement  of  this  post-Athenian  poetry  took  shape, 
after  a  long  period  of  disintegration  and  diffusion,  in 
the  circle  where  the  central  figure,  so  far  as  there  is 
any  central  figure,  is  that  of  Callimachus.  Of  this 
movement  towards  the  reconstitution  of  poetry  I  have 
given  a  sketch  in  a  lecture  on  the  Alexandrians ;  and 
this  is  followed  by  studies  of  the  two  Alexandrian 
poets,  Theocritus  and  ApoUonius,  in  whom  we  may  see 
most  clearly  the  last  interpretation  of  life  effected  by 
the  Greek  genius,  and  the  premonitions  of  a  new 
poetical  world. 

The  position  of  Greek  as  a  factor  in  culture  has 
never  been  more  assured  than  it  is  now.  It  moves 
beyond  reach  of  the  attacks  of  those  who  fancy  them- 
selves its  opponents,  and  the  alarmed  outcries  of  those 
who  profess  themselves  its  only  friends.  It  requires 
no   elaborate  system   of   artificial    protection :   it   has 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

become,  in  its  own  living  virtue,  part  of  our  inherit- 
ance. Its  study  has  increased  and  is  increasing, 
both  in  width  and  in  depth.  It  has  ceased  to  rest  on 
indolent  tradition,  or  to  be  regarded  as  the  appanage 
of  a  social  class.  It  exercises  over  the  whole  modern 
world  an  influence  astonishingly  potent  and  per- 
vasive. That  influence  is  all  the  greater  because  it 
is  no  longer  for  us  the  expression  of  another  world 
which,  however  fascinating,  is  yet  remote  from  our  own, 
but  of  a  world  brought  by  the  expansion,  liberation, 
and  co-ordination  of  knowledge  into  close  touch  with 
the  thought  and  art,  the  life  and  conduct,  of  the 
present  day.  The  danger  now  is,  not  of  Greek  being 
studied  too  little,  but  of  its  study  being  on  the  one 
hand  pursued  too  hastily  and  carelessly,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  distorted  under  the  pressure  of  a  specialisa- 
tion which  continually  becomes  more  exacting  in  its 
demands.  Against  both  dangers  the  safeguard  is  to  be 
found  in  Greek  poetry:  for  poetry  will  not  be  read 
carelessly ;  and  it  goes  straight  to  the  heart  of  life. 

The  aim  of  poetical  criticism  is  to  come  nearer  and 
nearer  towards  full  appreciation,  towards  disengaging 
the  essence  of  poetry.  Attainment  can  at  the  best 
be  only  approximate :  the  horizon  retreats  before  us. 
But  it  is  just  this  which  makes  further  advance  always 
possible.  The  last  word  on  poetry,  or  on  any  poet  or 
poem,  can  never  be  said.  If  it  were,  we  should  have 
mastered  the  secret  of  life.  But  the  next  word  is 
always  waiting  for  some  one  to  say  it. 

Our  last  word  on  poetry  cannot  be  said;  nor  can 
our  first  discovery  of  poetry  ever  ^be  remade.     Yet  it 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

is  just  in  so  far  as  we  can  get  near  this  double  im- 
possibility that  the  poets  will  bear  to  us  their  full 
meaning.  Now  and  then  at  least,  if  we  read  poetry  as 
it  should  be  read,  the  reward  will  come,  it  may  be  with 
some  great  poem,  it  may  be  only  with  some  passage 
or  phrase,  of  entering  fully  and  freshly  into  it,  as 
though  we  read  it  for  the  first  time  and  as  though 
it  gave  the  meaning  of  life.  It  is  in  such  moments, 
"  solemn  and  rare,"  that  poetry  performs  its  function 
for  us — or  rather,  that  we  perform  our  function  for 
poetry : 

To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand, 
And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
'         Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand, 
And  eternity  in  an  hour. 

To  attain  these  moments,  no  labour  is  wasted.  To 
communicate  them  is  the  glory  of  the  poets.  To  help 
towards  their  communication  is  the  highest  privilege, 
in  their  subsidiary  province,  of  the  exponents  of  poetry. 
For  criticism  is,  or  ought  to  be,  the  interpretation  of 
poetry  in  some  such  sense  as  poetry  is  itself  the 
interpretation  of  life. 

Such  interpretation  is  difficult ;  and  nowhere  more 
difficult  than  with  those  poets  who  have  for  many 
centuries  been  the  schoolbooks  of  the  civilised  world, 
whose  poetry  only  strikes  home  on  us  through  thick 
layers  of  tradition,  through  the  refracting  medium  of 
formal  scholarship,  through  the  distortion  of  what  must 
always  be  imperfect  understanding,  not  least  so  where 
we  do  not  even  know  enough  to  realise  the  amount 
and  kind  of  its  imperfection.     As  we  can  only  learn 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

life  by  actually  living,  so  we  can  only  appreciate  poetry 
by  actually  reading  it  ourselves,  with  our  own  eyes  and 
our  own  imaginative  effort ;  by  our  own  appreciation, 
not  by  that  of  others.  Attingenda  incerta  ingeniis  facta, 
alia  vero  ita  multis  prodita  ut  in  fastidium  sint  addtwta. 
Much  poetry  is  only  obscured  by  the  ingenuities  of 
criticism :  much  ancient  poetry — and  indeed  much 
modern  poetry  also — comes  to  us  so  overlaid  by  com- 
ment that  its  life  can  hardly  strike  through  to  ours. 
Any  one  who  attempts  a  new  interpretation,  a  fresh 
appreciation  of  it,  must  feel  anxious  lest  he  may  be 
only  standing  between  the  poetry  and  the  reader.  And 
this  is  quite  apart  from  the  difficulties  of  his  task  as 
regards  himself  and  his  own  appreciation.  Bes  ardua, 
vetustis  Twvitatem  dare,  novis  aiwtoritatem,  ohsoletis  nitorem, 
ohscuris  lucem,  fastiditis  gratiam,  duhiis  fidem,  omnibus 
vero  naturam,  et  naturae  suae  omnia.  But  the  difficulty 
of  the  task  does  not  make  it  less  necessary.  Such  at 
least  is  the  judgment  of  the  University  which,  alone 
among  those  of  the  modern  world,  possesses  and 
maintains  a  Chair  of  Poetry. 


HOMER 


THE   HOMERIC   QUESTION 


The  Homeric  question  has  been  with  us  for  more  than 
a  century,  and  while  it  has  exercised  and  stimulated 
scholarship,  it  has  also  to  some  extent  obscured  Homer. 
For  behind  the  Homeric  question,  and  visible  now  only 
with  some  difficulty  through  the  dust  of  controversy, 
lie  the  two  things  which  really  matter,  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey.  Nearly  half  a  century  has  passed  since 
Arnold,  in  his  famous  lectures  on  translating  Homer, 
made  a  serious  attempt  to  estimate  the  nature  and  the 
quality  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  as  poetry.  In  such 
estimates  there  is  no  finality.  Each  age  must  make  them 
anew  for  itself;  but  the  time  has  now  come  when  this 
attempt  may  at  least  be  repeated  in  the  light  of  a  vast 
access  of  experience.  During  the  last  generation  our 
knowledge  of  the  ancient  world,  our  methods  of  in- 
vestigation, our  armament  of  criticism,  have  all  under- 
gone immense  expansion.  We  have  reached  a  point 
at  which  it  becomes  possible  to  look  about  us,  to  sum 
up  the  results  so  far  attained,  and  to  set  down  certain 
things  as  either  fixed  or  probable.  Within  the  last  few 
years,  in  particular,  these  results  seem  to  have  been 
clarifying  and  co-ordinating  themselves.  The  work  of 
specialists  is  being  passed  on  to  those  who  can  use  it 


4  HOMER 

critically  and  constructively.  We  still  await  some 
one  to  bring  it  together  and  vivify  it,  to  give  us  back 
our  Homer,  enriched,  understood,  restored. 

This  has  still  to  be  done ;  and  it  will  be  done,  we 
may  hope  with  some  confidence,  within  this  or  the 
next  generation.  The  premonitions  are  too  numerous 
to  be  ignored,  too  weighty  to  be  neglected.  My  object 
for  the  present  is  partly  to  summarise,  partly  to  anti- 
cipate. This  is  an  almost  necessary  preliminary  to 
any  attempt  at  an  appreciation  of  Homer.  Without 
some  indication  of  a  point  of  view  on  the  Homeric 
question,  any  discussion  of  Homer  as  poetry  must  be 
subject  to  ambiguities  and  misunderstandings.  In  doing 
this  I  merely  propose  to  give  a  sketch  or  a  suggestion 
of  the  position  as  it  appears  to  me  to  stand  now ;  to 
ofifer  what  seem  to  me  results,  without  the  processes 
by  which  they  are  reached,  without  proof  or  argument. 
This  in  any  case  is  all  that  the  occasion  allows ;  and 
it  is  my  apology  for  anything  which  follows  that  might 
seem,  without  this  explanation,  to  be  dogmatic.  I 
shall  be  satisfied  if  I  can  suggest  lines  of  thought,  to 
be  filled  up  or  corrected  by  my  readers  from  their  own 
knowledge,  and  according  to  their  own  literary  or 
historical,  and  above  all  according  to  their  own  poetical 
instinct.  Much  of  what  the  modern  Homeridae  are 
concerned  with  does  not  enter  into  the  scope  of  this 
sketch  at  all.  I  pass  over  their  schemes  and  systems, 
some  because  they  are  already  obsolete,  others  because 
they  are  for  the  present  purpose  irrelevant.  I  make 
no  attempt  to  trace  their  history  or  to  indicate  the 
successive  phases  through  which    they  have  passed: 


THE   BEGINNINGS   OF   GREECE         5 

nor  do  I  point  the  moral  which  forces  itself  on  any  one 
who  casts  his  eye  over  that  row  of  extinct  theories, 
each  once  in  its  own  time  alive.  They  took  colour, 
they  drew  their  force  and  persuasiveness,  from  one  or 
another  master- theory  prevalent,  and  accepted  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  at  the  time  ;  from  some  plau- 
sible "  key  to  all  poetries."  It  fed  them  with  blood ; 
as  it  ceased  to  do  so,  they  also  in  turn  faded  back  into 
bloodless  ghosts,  vckvcov  aimevrjva  Kaprjva.  My  object  is 
now  to  consider  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  simply  as  two 
consummate  achievements  in  poetry,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  one  who  considers^oetry  itself  as  a  function, 
interpretation,  and  pattern  of  life.  V  And  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  this  consideration,  it  is  essential,  first,  to 
regard  the  way  in  which  Homer — using  that  word  in 
its  ordinary  sense — came  to  be :  and  then,  in  the  light 
of  this  process,  to  regard  the  effect  of  Homer  on  the 
genius  and  life  of  the  Hellenic  civilisation,  and  of  the 
Hellenic  civilisation  on  Homer.  Eor  Homer  was 
before  Hellas :  yet  Hellas  gave  us  Homer. 

In  history,  nothing  begins  and  nothing  ends:  and 
it  is  not  possible  to  assign  any  precise  date  to  the 
birth  of  the  Greek  race  or  the  Greek  genius.  They 
emerge  from  obscurity  in 'a  period  of  which  we  know 
little,  and  are  not  likely  to  know  much  more.  For 
the  knowledge  that  would  be  useful  to  us  is  not  such 
as  can  be  derived  to  any  large  extent  from  archaeologi- 
cal discoveries.  These  may  often  supplement,  may 
sometimes  suggest,  but  cannot  create  the  substance  of 
what  it  would  be  to  our  purpose  to  know.  In  sum, 
however,  the  main  facts  seem  to  stand  somewhat  thus. 


6  HOMER 

Some  time  about  1100  B.C.  the  movement  of  peoples 
began  which  goes  in  ancient  records  by  the  name  of 
the  Dorian  invasion.  It  broke  into,  and  broke  up,  a 
mediaeval  civilisation  in  the  region  afterwards  known 
as  Greece :  that  mediaeval,  Homeric,  or  "  Mycenaean  " 
civilisation  having  itself  succeeded,  perhaps  at  a  long 
interval,  a  still  earlier  and  still  more  imposing  civilisa- 
tion of  which  the  remains  have  yielded  themselves  to 
explorers  in  Crete.  But  that  was  a  long,  slow  process ; 
the  Middle  Ages,  then  as  once  again  in  Western 
Europe,  died  hard,  or  did  not  wholly  die  at  all;  they 
changed  their  life.  For  a  full  century — say  from 
1050  to  950  B.C.  (such  dates  are  mere  convenient 
symbols) — there  was  a  great  tide  of  migration  and 
expansion.  The  old  Achaean  settlements  were  broken 
up.  The  Asiatic  coast  was  colonised  from  Europe. 
The  loosely  knit  texture  of  the  Achaean  communities 
slowly  transformed  itself  into  a  system  of  more  definite 
monarchies  and  aristocracies.  Beneath  these,  there 
began  the  first  stirrings  of  self-conscious  life  among 
the  people.  The  changes  were  not  only  material 
and  external;  they  were  not  even  only  political  or 
social.  They  were  changes  in  the  soul  of  man.  The 
human  mind  took  an  advance  of  momentous  import- 
ance; it  gained  a  step  which  it  has  never  since 
wholly  lost.  That  step  was  the  disengagement  of 
the  creative  intelligence.  Thought  began ;  and  with 
thought  came  the  instrument  of  thought,  letters. 
The  alphabet  was  in  general  use  by  the  end  of 
the  century  of  migrations ;  with  the  adoption  of  the 
alphabet,     both     as     cause     and    effect,    came    the 


THE    MEDIAEVAL   INHERITANCE      7 

beginnings  of  Greek  litoature,  and  we  may  say^„of 
Greek  life.'. 

The  new  age  inherited  a  rich  tradition  of  story  and 
song  from  the  mediaeval  life  out  of  which  it  had  risen. 
When,  reaching  comparative  settlement  after  a  century 
of  confusion  and  dislocation,  it  found  in  itself  both  the 
leisure  and  the  capacity  for  art,  it  turned  to  those  old 
inherited  stories  as  to  a  world  which  had  already 
taken  on  the  enchantment  of  distance.  The  old 
Achaean,  pre-Dorian  world,  still  more  or  less  familiar 
in  its  ways  of  life,  as  in  its  language  and  its  dwelling- 
places,  became  idealised  into  an  epic  age.  It  was  so 
idealised  alike  by  its  own  descendants  and  by  the 
Northern  immigrants  or  conquerors  who  had  mingled 
with  them  in  blood  and  speech.  This  was  so  more 
especially  on  the  Asiatic  coast,  where  the  fusion  of  the 
races  was  most  complete.  To  these  colonists,  of  what- 
ever blood,  came  the  appeal  of  a  half-legendary  past, 
with  an  o verier dship  of  Argos  and  great  deeds  of  a 
confederacy  of  princes.  It  came  home  to  them  all, 
as  that  of  Arthur  the  Briton,  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Logres,  and  the  feats  of  the  Round  Table,  came  home 
to  English,  Normans,  and  French,  no  less  than  to 
Britons,  on  both  sides  of  the  English  Channel.  The 
analogy  is  fertile  in  many  ways;  most  strikingly  of 
all  in  the  way  in  which  both  these  bodies  of  epic 
romance  ignore  history,  ignore  differences  of  race 
and  severance  of  language,  ignore  even  the  cataclysms 
which  separated  that  actual  or  imagined  past  from 
the  present.  We  do  not,  for  instance,  look  for,  and 
we    do    not    find,    in    the    Arthurian    literature    any 


8  HOMER 

allusion  to  the  Norman   conquest   of  Great    Britain. 
The  literature  and  its  whole  environment  are  shut  off 
from  the  world  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  from  what 
lay    historically  behind    that   world,    by  an  absolute 
barrier.     There  is  no  hint,  no  idea,  that  the  mediaeval 
world    had   somehow    been    made,    whether    by  slow 
changes  or  by  violent  shocks,  out  of  the  heroic  Ar- 
thurian world ;  the  question  how  the  one  thing  was 
made  out  of  the  other  does  not  even  arise.     So  also 
it  is  with  Homer.     In  both  cases,  too,  the  seed-ground 
of  the  new  poetry  is  in  a  grouping  of  countries  round 
a  central  sea ;  and  that  sea  is  not  only  a  highway  of 
commerce  and  migration,  but  the  fluid  medium  (one 
might   say)   through   which    the    movements    of   the 
human  mind  spread  and   communicated  themselves 
so    easily  and   so    rapidly  that    they  seem    to    arise 
simultaneously  and  independently  in   many  different 
quarters.      This   is  the  important   truth   latent   in   a 
fertile  remark  of  Coleridge's  preserved  by  Scott:  in 
Homer  "there   was,  he  said,  the  individuality  of  an 
age,  but  not  of  a  country."  ^ 

Thus  Achaean  lays,  traditionally  transmitted,  be- 
came the  basis  for  both  court  and  popular  poetry. 
By  900  B.C.,  or  thereabouts,  we  are  in  the  age  of  the 
epic  lays,  the  K\ea  avSpwp.  In  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
these  earlier  epic  lays  or  chansons  de  geste  have  left 
unmistakable  traces  of  their  existence,  and  less  cer- 
tainly recoverable  indications,  now  and  then,  of  their 
actual  form.  The  material  of  portions  of  the  Iliad 
seems  to  have  taken  definite  poetical  shape  on  the 

*  Journal,  under  date  22nd  April  1828. 


THE   EPIC   LAYS  9 

mainland  of  Greece,  in  Thessaly  or  in  Boeotia,  at  an 
early  period  in  the  century  of  the  migrations — prob- 
ably while  the  Peloponnesus  was  still  Achaean.     But 
all  this  is  guess-work :  the  elaborate  inverted  pyramids 
of   reconstruction    that    have  been  successively  built 
up  by  theorising   scholars  go  down  at  a  touch.     In 
the  hands  of  their  most  brilliant  exponents  they  seem 
to  take  shape  for  a  moment,  then  dissolve  and  stream 
away  into  the  mist  out  of  which  they  rose.     The  epic 
lays  were  freely  used  by  later  poets ;  in  some  instances 
they  were  even,  no  doubt,  incorporated  en  bloc,  with 
but  little  change,  in  the  new   and  larger  structure. 
So  far    as    they  were    already  apt,   they  would    not 
require  readaptation.     But  the  search  after  a  primary 
Iliad  and  a  primary  Odyssey  is  in  the  main  futile ;  so 
far  as  it  is  not,  it  is  of  little  relevance.     It  is  due  to  a 
deep-seated  confusion  between  two  things — a  poem, 
and  a  story  or   stories — many  of   them    already  the 
subject  of  skilled  poetical  treatment — on  which  the 
poem  was  founded.     "  It  is  to  the  poet  of  the  primary 
Iliad,"  says  Jebb,  "if  to  any  one,  that  the  name  of 
Homer  belongs."     That  sentence  puts  the  fallacy  in 
a  succinct    form.     The    answer    to    it  is    that    there 
was  no  primary  Iliad.     So  also,  the  saga  which  was 
the  origin   of  the    Odyssey  probably  took   shape  in 
Greece    Proper    before    the    migrations,    or    at    least 
before    its    own    migration;     and    that    shape    was 
poetry,  though  it  was  not  Homeric  poetry.     It  was 
not  the  "  original  Odyssey,"  any  more  than  the  saga 
summarised    in    Saxo    Grammaticus   is    the    original 
Hamlet.     The  argument  against  the   unity  of  either 


10  HOMER 

Iliad  or  Odyssey  is  in  effect  that  which  may  be  urged 
against  the  unity  of  any  vital  organism — 

Thou  art  not  thyself, 
For  thou  exist'st  on  many  a  thousand  grains 
That  issue  out  of  dust.^ 

The  statement  so  often  made,  that  "  at  least  two 
poets  have  wrought"  on  this  or  that  portion  of  the 
Iliad,  generally  amounts  to  no  more  than  this,  that 
the  poet  has  there  used  at  least  two  stories,  at  least 
two  bodies  of  material,  which  lay  before  him  in  the 
work  of  two,  or  it  may  be  of  twenty,  earlier  poets. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century  B.C.  the  epic 
lays,  the  KXea  apSpwp,  had  become  a  whole  body  of 
literature,  in  the  full  sense  of  that  term.  For  them 
a  literary  vehicle,  the  |  Aeolian  or  mixed  language, 
had  been  evolved  and  brought  to  high  perfection;  a 
metrical  form  of  unsurpassed  flexibility  and  beauty, 
the  heroic  hexameter,  had  been  wrought  out;  their 
overwhelming  vogue  had,  so  far  as  can  be  judged, 
eclipsed  all  other  poetical  forms  and  subjects.  The 
potentialities  of  epic  poetry  were  created;  the  time 
was  ripe  for  the  great  epic  poet. 

Then  the  great  epic  poet  came.  Somewhere  on  the 
J  Ionian  coast  or  among  the  adjacent  islands,  in  a  sky 
sown  thick  with  dust  of  stars,  a  great  planet  rose. 
Homer  conceived  and  executed  the  Iliad. 

That  Iliad,  in  its  main  substance  and  its  essential 
form,  is  the  Iliad  which  we  possess  now.  It  passed 
through  many  vicissitudes.  It  suffered,  as  we  shall 
see  presently,  one  long  eclipse  or  submergence.     It 

*  Measure  for  Measure,  iii.  1. 


THE   CANONICAL   HOMER  11 

received  accretions  of  substance,  some  of  which  prob- 
ably are,  some  certainly  are  not,  from  the  hand  of  its 
original  author.  Its  dialectical  forms  were  modified : 
in  details  it  was  retouched  and  modernised.  But  it 
remained  the  same  poem.  The  canonical  Iliad  issued 
as  an  Authorised  Version  at  Athens  in  the  sixth 
century  B.C.,  which  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  our  ^ 
Iliad,  is  also  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  original 
and  only  Iliad,  the  work  of  Homer.  V\, 

About  a  generation — it  may  be  as  much  as  two 
generations — after  the  Iliad,  the  same  poetical  move- 
ment, the  same  quality  of  poetical  genius,  taking  a 
fresh  advance,  produced  the  Odyssey.  Speaking  poeti- 
cally, as  a  matter  of  art,  the  Odyssey  implies  the  Iliad 
throughout.  It  is  a  work  of  lower  poetical  splendour  * 
but  of  higher  technical  skill.  In  this  matter  of 
technical  skill  the  author  of  the  Odyssey  set  himself, 
as  it  were,  deliberately  to  excel  the  Iliad.  The  general 
tradition  accepted  through  Greece  later  was  that  the 
poems  were  by  the  same  poet,  but  separated  by  a  con- 
siderable interval  of  years.  This  view  is  rejected  by 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  modern  scholars,  but 
it  cannot  be  said  to  be  impossible.  Even  if  we  hold 
without  hesitation  that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  are 
by  different  poets — and  it  seems  to  me  difficult  to  hold 
this  without  a  good  deal  of  hesitation — many  of  the 
arguments  by  which  that  view  has  been  supported  are 
either  misstatements  or  irrelevances.  Tests  must  be 
applied  to  criticism  as  much  as  to  things  criticised, 
and  under  these  tests  much  of  the  destructive  criti- 
cism of  Homer  loses  its  edge,  much  of  the  hypothetical 


12  HOMER 

reconstruction  crumbles  away.  We  must  apply,  here 
as  elsewhere,  the  comparative  method.  There  is  no 
precise  analogy ;  but  the  poet  who  produced  the  Iliad 
in  the  early  prime  of  his  life  was,  as  one  may  put  it,  a 
poet  capable  of  the  artistic  and  poetical  change  which 
is  felt  in  the  Odyssey,  among  new  surroundings,  with 
an  altered  view  of  life,  with  an  imaginative  ardour 
burning  less  strongly,  and  with  increased  constructional 
mastery.  As  a  masterpiece  of  construction  the  Odyssey 
is  unsurpassed,  perhaps  unequalled  in  poetry.  The 
tradition  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  advanced  age  of 
the  poet  of  the  Iliad  is  also  in  singular  consonance  with 
the  fact  that  in  the  last  books  there  may  clearly  be 
traced  either  a  different  or  a  failing  hand.  The  last 
624  lines  were  rejected  by  Alexandrian  critics  as  a  late 
addition.  But  there  is  more  than  that.  Up  to  the 
nineteenth  book  the  construction  is  masterly  and  the 
certainty  of  hand  complete.  From  that  point  on  to  the 
end  the  constructive  power  flags ;  the  workmanship 
becomes  here  and  there  hasty,  unfinished,  or  uncertain. 
Whether  this  is  due  to  failing  powers  in  an  aging  poet, 
or  to  his  death  (as  was  the  case  with  Virgil  and  the 
Aeneid)  before  he  had  finished  his  work,  is  mere 
conjecture;  the  author  of  the  Odyssey  may  have 
finished  (as  Shakespeare  does  sometimes,  and  Scott 
habitually)  in  a  hurry,  or  a  pupil  may  have  worked 
over  and  pieced  out  the  master's  unfinished  conclusion. 
But  in  no  case  is  the  substantial  unity  of  the  Odyssey 
as  a  work  of  art  affected. 

^  Internal  evidence,  Jebb  thought,  was  conclusive  as 
to    the   workings    of   a   different  mind    in    the  Iliad 


THE   DIFFERENT   MIND  13 

and  Odyssey.     A  different  mind  may  however  come  to 
a  poet  with  the  lapse  of  years  and  with  fresh  experiences. 
Analogies  are  slippery.     But  if  we  turn  to  the  most 
Homeric  of  English  poets,  we  shall  find  a  different 
mind  in  the  Life  and  Death  of  Jason  and  in  the  Story 
of  Sigurd  the  Volsung.     If  we  turn  to  Milton,  we  shall 
find,    even   at  the  interval  of  but   a  few  years,  the 
workings  of  a  different  mind  in  the  Paradise  Lost  and 
the  Paradise  Regained,  in   form,  technique,  and  sub- 
stance.    We    shall   find  .in  the  Paradise  Regained  an 
analogous  lessening  of  tension,  an  analogous  shrinkage 
of  similes,  a  different  way  (as  is  said  of  the  Odyssey  in 
contrast  with  the  Iliad)  of  thinking  of  the  Gods.     We 
shall  find  that  the  vocabulary  and  syntax  show  marked 
changes.      These   changes   are  not   only  formal,  but 
substantial.     One  instance  will  be  sufficient  to  show 
what  is  meant  as  regards  vocabulary.     In  the  Paradise 
Losty  the  "  glass  of  Galileo,"  or  the  astronomer's  "  glaz'd 
optick  tube  "  as  it  is  called  elsewhere,  is  referred  to  in 
terms  which  indicate  it  as  something  strange,  unique, 
almost  magical.      In  the  Paradise  Regained,  the  tele- 
scope  and  the  microscope    are    spoken    of  by  their 
ordinary  names    and    quite   as    a    matter  of   course. 
Were  the  methods  of  much  Homeric  criticism  applied 
to  Milton,   this  would  be   one  of  the  facts  cited   to 
prove  that  the  Paradise  Regained  belonged  to  a  later 
cultural  epoch  than  that  of  the  Paradise  Lost,     Had 
the    two    poems    reached    us  as  the  sole  relics  of  a 
submerged  world,  subjected  to  all  the  subtle  effects  of 
changing  dialect,  of  long  transmission  through  imper- 
fect   manuscripts,    of   dispersion  and  re-collection,  it 


14  HOMER 

would  not  be  beyond  the  power  of  scholars  to  make 
out  a  plausible  case  both  for  a  primary  or  "  original " 
Paradise  Lost  and  for  the  attribution  of  Paradise 
Regained  to  a  different  author  belonging  to  a  later 
generation. 

So  it  is,  too,  with  the  Aeneid.  With  it  we  know 
the  facts  for  certain.  Virgil  wrought  up  into  it  masses 
of  older  material ;  he  left  it  incomplete  at  his  death, 
full  of  variant  readings,  unfinished  passages,  unplaced 
episodes.  It  had  to  be  arranged  and  edited  by  his 
executors.  They  did  their  work  conscientiously  and 
admirably ;  in  particular,  they  scrupulously  refrained 
from  adding  even  a  word  anywhere.  But  even  so,  had 
the  Aeneid  reached  us  without  any  collateral  or  external 
evidence  as  to  the  circumstances  of  its  composition, 
did  we  possess  it  as  the  earliest  known  product  of 
Graeco-Roman  poetry,  reaching  us  out  of  an  unknown 
world,  rising  like  an  island  out  of  unplumbed  seas,  it 
would  be  easy  to  trace  in  it  the  work  of  different 
hands.  There  would  almost  certainly  have  been  some 
plausible  theory  of  a  primary  Aeneid,  and  of  its  ex- 
pansion by  successive  insertions.  At  least  three  poets, 
other  than  the  poet  of  the  Italian  epic  which  was 
the  "  original "  or  "  primary  "  Aeneid,  would  have  been 
confidently  named  as  responsible  for  the  third,  fourth, 
and  sixth  books,  besides  a  fourth  who  worked  them 
over  to  make  them  fit  into  the  poem  as  it  took  final 
shape.  Whole  passages  would  have  been  obelised. 
An  earlier  theory  that  it  was  made  up  by  the 
skilful  piecing  together  of  a  series  of  short  poems 
would    have    been    succeeded    by    a    theory   that    an 


THE   DECADENCE  15 

original  core,  to  which  large  accretions  had  been  made, 
had  been  wholly  re-edited  and  re-shaped,  and  that  the 
name  of  Virgil  belonged,  if  to  any  one,  to  the  author 
of  the  primary  or  Italian  Aeneid. 

By  the  end  of  the  ninth  century  B.C.  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  existed:  but  Hellas  did  not  yet  exist.  A  century 
or^more  followed,  the  whole  history  of  which  is  plunged 
in  darkness.  In  literature,  it  is  represented  by  the 
lost  epics  of  the  Cycle.  Like  the  Chaucerians  in 
England,  the  Cyclic  poets  carried  on  the  Homeric 
tradition  with  continually  dwindling  powers:  the 
record  in  both  cases  is  one  of  swift  decadence  and 
growing  incompetence;  in  both  cases  the  last  feeble 
efforts  overlap  the  birth  of  a  new  poetry.  A  modern 
theory,  urged  with  much  learning  and  by  some  at  least 
of  its  supporters  with  plausible  persuasiveness,  makes 
tradition  invert  the  order  of  facts.  It  makes  the 
Cycle  consist  of  a  mass  of  pre-Homeric  epics.  It 
represents  it  as  the  material  out  of  which  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  were  refined  by  a  nobler  morality  and 
a  more  developed  artistic  sense.  But  the  debase- 
ment of  a  style  does  not  precede  its  culmination.  As 
a  matter  of  art,  no  less  than  as  a  matter  of  substance, 
the  Cyclic  epics  imply  Homer.  They  fell  back,  no 
doubt,  on  motives  which  Homer  had  deliberately  re- 
jected. This  is  what  all  decadent  schools  do,  and 
reversion  is  inseparable  from  evolution.  But  no  solid 
proof,  no  probability  which  commends  itself  as  such  to 
a  trained  poetical  instinct,  has  been  advanced  against 
the  consent  of  all  tradition,  that  their  object  was  to 
supplement  Homer,  that  their  method  was  to  imitate 


16  HOMER 

him,  and  that  where  they  struck  out  on  a  line  of  their 

own,  they  lacked  the  genius  to  succeed  in  it.     The 

Cypria,  written  as  an  introduction  to  the  Iliad,  the 

•  Aethiopis,  Iliupersis,  and  Nostoi,  written  to  fill  up  the 

space  between  the  IHad  and  Odyssey,  are  dated  early 

in  the  eighth  century  B.C.     The  stream  of  epic  flows 

i  on  from  them  in  a  fainter  and  fainter  trickle,  not 

;  wholly  disappearing   until    the    middle  of  the  sixth 

I  century.     Meanwhile,  Hellas  had  been  born. 

In  the  dim  records  of  the  eighth  century  we  can 
just  trace  the  outlines  of  a  life  which  was  still  pre- 
Hellenic,  but  which  held  in  it  the  germ  of  Hellenism. 
The  old  kingdoms  have  mostly  disappeared.  Sybaris 
and  Miletus  are  the  two  wealthiest  and  largest  cities 
in  the  Greek  world.  Sparta  and  Athens  are  becoming 
important  powers  in  Greece  Proper.  The  afterglow 
of  the  mediaeval  world,  which  had  produced  the  age 
of  the  epic,  had  faded  out ;  and  on  the  eastern  horizon 
appears,  pale  and  clear,  the  dawn  of  a  new  day. 

The  earliest  of  the  Greek  lyrists,  in  whom  the  voice 
of  Hellas  first  manifests  itself,  do  not  go  back  much 
beyond  700  b.c.  Already  by  that  time  the  memory 
of  the  Homeric  poems  had  become  faint.  The  Iliad 
and  Odyssey,  like  two  great  mountain  peaks,  had 
retreated  and  become  hidden  behind  the  foot-hills 
of  the  Cycle.  The  life  which  they  re-created  and  inter- 
preted was  very  dim  and  remote.  It  is  probable  that 
their  dialectical  forms,  and  even  to  some  extent  their 
vocabulary,  had  become  difficult.  The  new  poetry, 
the  poetry  of  Hellas,  rose  independently  of  them, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  distinct  reaction  from 


THE    RE-EMERGENCE  17 

them,  and  except  in  so  far  as  they  had  created  a 
literary  language  which  to  a  great  extent  remained 
that  of  the  whole  Greek  world.  The  Greek  genius 
had  set  itself  to  the  two  great  creations  which  it  in- 
troduced into  the  world  and  over  which  it  spent  its 
whole  life — the  creation  of  the  state  and  the  creation 
of  the  individual.  The  epic  minstrels  dwindled  into 
court  poets  and  became  obsolete.  For  all  the  lyrists 
of  the  seventh  and  the  earlier  half  of  the  sixth  century, 
Homer  might  not  have  existed ;  we  do  not  feel  Homer 
in  them. 

In  the  sixth  century  begins   the  age   of  the  de-  ''^X-nxX^-xJ 
mocracies.     It  is  then  that  Homer  reappears.     As  the      '^(>-h^-i 
world   travelled  on,  the  foot-hills  sank  away,  and  in      6    ^\ 
the  broadening  daylight  the  two  great  mountain  peaks 
once  more  swam  into  the  ken  of  Hellas.     Homer  had 
been  brought  to  Sparta  from  Crete,  we  are  told,  nearly       . 
a  century  before  lyric  poetry  was  brought  to  Sparta 
direct  by  Tyrtaeus  and  Alcman.     But,  if  so,  he  had 
not  remained  there  as  a  vital  influence — he  had  not 
struck  root.     The  recitation  of  Homer  was  stopped,  we 
are  told  again,  at  Sicyon  by  Cleisthenes  about  600  B.C. 
Whatever  this  means,  it  means  that  Homer  was  no 
vital  element  in  the  life  of  Sicyon :  it  was  like  Jus- 
tinian's closure  of  the  Schools  of  Athens.     The  re- 
emergence  of  Homer,  the  launching  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  upon  the  main   current   of  Greek  life,  took 
place  later.     It  took  place  at  Athens  in  the  time  of 
Peisistratus.     What  Athens  did  for  Homer,  and  what 
Homer  did  for  Athens,  we  cannot  say  precisely ;  but 
we  can  say  this  largely,  that  Homer  was  the  gift  of 

B 


18  HOMER 

Athens,  and  Athens  the  gift,.of_Jiomer,  to  Hellas  and 
to  the  whole  world. 

In  an  age  of  few  written  texts  and  no  exact  scholar- 
ship, the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  had  only  survived,  as  it 
were,  by  a  series  of  miracles.  There  had  been  much 
interpolation,  much  confusion,  much  cutting  up ;  but 
the  organic  unity  and  organic  life  of  the  poems  were 
so  complete  and  so  powerful  that  they  had  come 
through  substantially  intact.  The  text  of  the  Odyssey, 
the  various  texts  of  the  Iliad,  which  were  collected  by 
the  enthusiasm  and  industry  of  Athenian  scholars, 
enabled  them  to  reinstate  and  give  universal  currency 
to  an  Iliad  and  Odyssey  which  were  in  substance  the 
authentic  Homer. 

The  term  I  have  just  used  must  be  more  closely 
defined  if  it  is  not  to  be  misunderstood.    The  authentic 
Homer  was  not  a  fixed  text.     This  is  no  paradox ;  it 
only  seems  paradoxical  because  we  are  so  accustomed 
to  poems  which  have  assumed  a  fixed  text — before, 
the  invention  of  printing  as  well  as  after — from  the 
moment   of    publication.      But    when    reading    and 
writing  were  arts  laboriously  exercised  and  confined  to. 
a  small  number  of  skilled  experts,  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  publication.     A  poet  then  retained  his  poem . 
more  in  his  own  possession ;  he  did  more  freely,  more 
as  a  matter  of  course,  what  it  is  his  natural  tendency 
to  do — remodelled,  retouched,  recast,  rearranged,  re- 
worded, what  still  remained  fluid  and  plastic  in  his. 
hands.     If  he  chose,  this  process  only  ended  with  his 
life.     Even  after  that,  it  went  on  among  those  into- 
whose  hands  the  poem   passed,  so  far  as  they  were 


THE   ATHENIAN   TEXT  19 

not  restrained  by  reverence  for  the  text  as  they  had 
received  it. 

In  the  Odyssey,  with  its  close-knit  and  masterly 
construction,  little  was  likely  to  be  done ;  even  the 
conclusion,  with  all  its  imperfections,  was  accepted  as 
it  stood.  The  larger  and  more  elastic  scheme  of 
the  Iliad  had  admitted  more  variation  and  inter- 
polation; it  had  paid  the  price  also  of  its  wider 
diifusion  and  its  greater  popularity.  The  work  of 
the  Athenian  editors  was  clearly  done  with  great 
judgment  and  with  great  conservatism.  They  may 
have  carried  further  the  lonisation  of  the  language 
which  had  been  insensibly  proceeding  in  the  course  of 
previous  transmission.  They  were  accused  of  having 
interpolated  one  or  two  lines;  we  can  hardly  doubt 
that  they  removed  a  considerable  amount  of  accretions 
which  had  found  their  way  into  one  or  another  of  the 
texts  which  were  before  them.  But  they  retained  the 
Doloneia,  which  even  according  to  the  old  tradition 
was  a  separate  epic  lay,  written  by  the  author  of  the 
Iliad,  but  not  a  part  of  the  Iliad.  They  retained  the 
additions,  clearly  post-Homeric,  which  had  found  their 
way  into  the  account  of  the  funeral  games :  they  re- 
tained the  so-called  Little  Aeneid  of  the  twentieth 
book,  which  has  all  the  appearance  of  an  insertion  that 
never  became  fully  assimilated.  But  it  is  impos- 
sible to  credit  a  late  tradition  that  the  Doloneia  had 
not  been  inserted  into  the  Iliad  until  then,  and 
that,  in  the  words  of  Eustathius,  "  Peisistratus  added 
it."  There  is  a  vital  difference,  as  all  the  mem- 
bers of   the    Society  for  the    Protection    of  Ancient 


m  HOMER 

Buildings  are  aware,  between  adding  and  refraining 
from  removing  an  addition.  Aristarchus  at  a  later 
period  obelised  certain  passages  without  removing 
them  ;  that  was  a  further  refinement  of  editing.  But 
what  they  left  unremoved,  the  Athenian  editors  did 
not  add,  any  more  than  Aristarchus  added  what  he 
did  not  obelise.  For  the  words  "  Peisistratus  added 
this,"  we  ought  to  substitute,  "  The  Peisistratean  editors 
found  and  accepted  this  addition." 

Their  work  in  main  substance  and  effect  was  a 
reconstitution,  to  the  best  of  their  power,  of  the 
authentic  Homer ;  and  this  was  the  Homer  that  they 
gave  to  Hellas  and  to  future  ages.  When,  three 
hundred  years  later,  a  fresh  revision  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  was  made,  the  Alexandrian  scholars  did  not, 
because  they  could  not,  go  back  behind  the  Athenian 
version.  It  was  the  Hellenic  Homer.  It  issued  from 
Athens,  because  Athens  was  already  becoming  the 
central  focus  of  Hellenic  art  and  life.  But  Athens 
became  that,  in  great  measure,  through  the  Athenian 
capacity  for  appreciating  Homer.  If  Athens  in  a 
sense  made  our  Homer,  Homer  likewise  in  a  sense 
made  our  Athens.  Homer,  says  Plato  in  the  Republic^ 
has  educated  Greece — Treiral^evKev  'EXXac^a.  Athens, 
we  may  remember,  had  herself  been  called  by  Pericles 
the  TralSevarig  'EXXa^09,  "  the  education  of  Greece." 
Both  sayings  are  aspects  of  the  same  truth.  Athens 
Hellenised  Homer,  and  Homer  through  Athens 
moulded  Hellas. 

The  effect  of  the  re-emergence  and  dominance  of 
Homer  on  the  literature  and  life  of  the  whole  Greek 


HOMER  AND   HELLAS  21 

world  was  swift  and  profound.  From  500  B.C.,  or  some 
years  earlier,  the  whole  of  Greek  literature  implies 
Homer,  is  founded  on  Homer,  is  in  organic  connection 
with  Homer  throughout.  Those  great  twin  peaks 
dominate  the  whole  landscape ;  their  slopes  feed  the 
plains  and  cities  of  men  with  the  produce  of  a  hundred 
forests,  the  soil  and  water  brought  down  by  a  thousand 
streams.  The  earlier  Greek  lyric,  the  flower  of  an  age 
in  which  Homer  was  half  forgotten,  faded  away  or 
became  transformed.  The' Attic  drama  was  the  creation 
of  a  Homerised  Hellas  with  its  Hellenised  Homer.  So, 
in  varying  measure,  was  the  whole  of  classical  Greek 
literature :  not  only  the  dramatists,  not  only  the  poets, 
but  the  orators,  the  historians,  the  philosophers. 

Thus  the  touch  of  Homer  upon  Hellas  had  some- 
thing of  the  same  awakening  and  vivifying  effect  that 
the  touch  of  Hellas  has  had,  again  and  again,  on  oth^r 
countries  and  later  ages.  The  movement  of  the  sixth/ 
century  B.C.,  which  brought  Homer  fully  into  the  life 
of  Hellas,  was  the  first  Renaissance.  In  the  course  of 
that  movement  the  Homeric  and  the  Hellenic  genius 
were  incorporated  and  became  indissolubly  one. 
Jointly  they  created  what  we  mean  by  Greece ;  they 
created  ideals  towards  which  the  human  race  has  ever 
since  turned  its  eyes.  In  that  temple  of  the  human 
spirit  are  ranged  the  Greek  classics,  the  bronze  and 
marble  of  fully  developed  Greek  thought  and  art. 
Behind  them  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  stand  in  the  dusk 
of  the  inner  sanctuary,  like  two  statues  in  the  ivory 
and  gold  of  an  earlier  world.  We  measure  and  analyse 
them,  we  examine  their  chips  and  flaws,  their  rubbings 


22  HOMER 

and  recolourings  ;  we  conjecture  the  elements  out  of 
which  they  grew,  we  try  our  best  to  reconstitute  the 
world  in  which  they  were  born ;  we  please  ourselves  by 
tracing  in  them  the  work  of  successive  hands  and  the 
accretions  of  successive  ages.  The  Homeric  question 
is  always  with  us.  But  so  is  Homer ;  and  to  Homer 
we  may  now  turn. 


II 

HOMER  AND   THE   ILIAD 

Homer  is  but  a  name :  and  the  Homeric  poems,  like 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  while  they  create  a  world, 
hardly  reveal  a  personality.  The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey 
as  they  have  descended  to  us  show  in  each  case  the 
hand  of  a  single  great  poet.  But  who  that  poet  was, 
or  when  he  lived,  or  how  far  he  incorporated  and  how 
far  he  transmuted  the  work  of  his  predecessors,  we  can 
only  guess.  Critical  analysis  and  imaginative  divina- 
tion alike  fail  us  when  we  come  to  the  heart  of  the 
question.  Still  less  can  we  form  any  notion  of  the 
poet's  mind,  of  his  own  attitude  towards  the  actual 
world  in  which  he  lived,  or  even  towards  the  magical 
world  which  he  presents  to  us.  In  both  cases  the 
personal  note  is  as  completely  absent  as  it  can  possibly 
be  from  any  piece  of  human  workmanship.  We  seem 
to  be  looking  on  the  work  of  some  impersonal  force,  a 
Deus  absconditus. 

Shakespeare  is  so  near  our  own  time  that  we  can 
almost  reach  back  and  touch  him.  We  have  his 
portrait,  his  signature,  copies  of  his  plays  made  in  his 
own  lifetime  ;  we  know  all  about  the  society  in  which 
he  lived.  No  great  cataclysm,  no  period  of  centuries 
whose  history  is  dependent  almost  wholly  on  tradi- 


24  HOMER 

tion  or  inference,  separates  him  from  us.  A  modem 
historian  has  not  to  say  of  him,  as  Herodotus  says  of 
Homer,  "  In  my  opinion  he  lived  not  more  than  four 
hundred  years  ago,"  and  leave  the  subject  there.  We 
have  records  of  his  life,  his  christening  and  burial,  his 
purchases  and  bequests,  scraps  of  his  conversation,  a 
few  rather  coarse  anecdotes.  They  all  tell  us  nothing. 
When  we  say  Shakespeare  we  mean  the  plays.  But 
the  plays  answer  none  of  our  questions  about  their 
author.  They  are  a  mirror,  and  a  mirror  that  has  the 
strange  power  of  making  its  own  images :  but  it  is 
nowhere  transparent.  Even  his  part  in  the  plays  is 
very  uncertain.  How  much  part  had  he  in  Henry  VI., 
in  Titus  Andronicus,  in  Timon  of  Athens  ?  How  far 
have  any  of  the  plays  reached  us  as  he  wrote  them  ? 
In  Henry  VIII.,  and  in  several  other  plays,  we  have 
intricate  and  perhaps  insoluble  problems  of  mixed 
authorship:  we  can  hardly  be  sure  that  we  possess 
fully  Shakespeare's  own  Hamlet,  we  can  be  almost 
sure  that  we  do  not  possess  fully  Shakespeare's  own 
Macbeth.  And  if  this  be  true  of  his  plays  externally, 
it  is  still  more  true  of  them  as  revelations  of  a  person. 
They  do  not  tell  us  clearly,  if  they  tell  us  at  all,  what 
he  thought  about  life,  the  world,  mankind.  Except 
for  merely  external  and  formal  allusions,  neither  the 
religious  beliefs  nor  the  religious  controversies  of  his 
time  might  have  existed  for  him.  The  contemptuous 
tone  towards  democracy  which  has  been  traced  as  a 
recurrent  note  in  the  plays  is  merely  dramatic,  and 
may  be  wholly  artificial.  For  the  actual  Shakespeare, 
we  have  the  key  of  the  Sonnets — if  we  were  sure  how 


HOMER   AND   SHAKESPEARE  25 

to  fit  it  into  the  lock — and  we  have  Shakespeare's 
women.  But  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  rise  before  us, 
as  they  rose  before  the  awakening  consciousness  of 
Hellas  two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago,  like 
islands  out  of  an  unplumbed  sea. 

From  that  same  sea,  long  afterwards,  through 
stages  of  which  we  can,  with  the  modern  armament 
of  scholarship,  dimly  trace  the  rough  outline,  rose 
what  we  know  as  Greece,  the  Hellenic  art,  thought, 
life.  The  Iliad  and  Odyssey  had,  we  may  say  con- 
fidently, assumed  their  form  before  then:  before  the 
Peisistratean  recension,  before  the  age  of  the  earlier 
Greek  lyric  poets,  before  the  beginning  of  authorised 
chronology.  This  assumption  of  form,  which  in  the 
main  issue  made  them  what  they  are,  was  the  work  in 
each  case  of  a  certain  poet  of  supreme  genius.  It  is 
with  the  poems  themselves,  not  with  the  material  out 
of  which  they  were  shaped  or  the  stages  and  processes 
of  the  shaping,  that  we  have  to  do  when  we  are 
considering  poetry  as  a  function  of  life.  The  earlier 
attempts  to  dissect  either  poem  are  now  realised  to 
have  missed  the  main  point.  Later  analysis,  more 
skilful  and  better  informed,  has  but  little  to  do  with 
the  nature  and  progress  of  poetry.  The  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  are  not  rhapsodies  in  the  obvious  sense  of 
that  word,  although  they  imply  the  work  of  rhapsodes. 
The  complex  product  (this  cannot  be  repeated  too 
often)  is  analogous  to  a  chemical  rather  than  to  a 
mechanical  combination.  But  it  is  equally  essential 
to  remember  that  even  the  chemical  analogy  is  far 
short  of  the  truth.     We  have  to  do  with  life.     Both 


26  HOMER 

poems  are  vital  organisms,  and  their  growth  was 
organic,  whether  we  regard  it  as  the  slow  age-long 
deposit  of  some  coral  forest  under  the  sea,  or  as  the 
bursting  into  flower,  in  a  single  lifetime,  of  what  had 
been  long  maturing  invisibly  in  root  and  stem  and 
bud.  In  either  case  they  are  the  final  transformation 
in  the  life  and  growth  of  a  poetry  which  must  have 
been  living  and  growing  for  generations.  The  old  care- 
less view,  due  partly  to  ignorance  and  partly  to  mis- 
understanding of  ambiguous  terms,  that  they  represent 
the  birth  of  poetry  in  some  fancied  youth  of  the  world, 
is  as  nearly  as  may  be  the  reverse  of  the  truth.  They 
are  not  the  birth  of  poetry ;  they  are  its  full  maturity, 
just  before,  in  that  particular  form,  poetry  ceased  to 
live  and  to  interpret  life.  And  the  same  is  true  of 
all  the  greatest  poetry,  as  it  is  true,  even  more  widely, 
of  all  the  greatest  art.  Poetry  itself,  art  itself,  is 
indeed  immortal.  But  its  progress  passes  from  one 
to  another  manifestation.  We  speak  locally  of  sunrise 
and  sunset,  but  over  the  world  as  a  whole  the  sun  is 
always  rising  and  always  setting.  And  when  art  fulfils 
itself,  it  is  on  the  point  of  passing  on  elsewhither,  of 
dismissing  its  finished  task  and  seeking  a  new  world 
to  conquer  and  transform.  For  the  age  and  country 
in  which  they  came  into  being,  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
represent  not  sunrise  but  sunset,  though  to  us,  further 
towards  the  darkening  west,  irori  ^ocpov  tjepoepra,  they 
appear  to  be  coloured  with  morning  glories,  to  lie  far 
off  towards  the  sunrise  and  the  dawn. 

In  one  of  the  most  profound  and  illuminating  of 
his  literary  criticisms,  Aristotle  observes  of  tragedy 


THE    MATURED   EPIC  27 

that  when,  after  passing  through  many  phases,  it  had 
once  fully  realised  itself,  it  stopped — eiravararo,  cTrel 
eo-^e  rrjv  avrrj^  (pvoriv.  In  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  as 
they  assumed  their  final  form,  the  epic  "  attained  its 
nature."  Then  it  stopped:  there  was  nothing  more 
to  be  done.  Except  for  inconsiderable  and  one  might 
say  merely  verbal  alterations,  the  epic  had  crystallised 
in  its  permanent  structure.  Lines  might  be  inter- 
polated in  a  catalogue,  or  even  a  whole  catalogue 
inserted;  redundant  passages  might  be  added  or  re- 
moved ;  a  large  amount  of  verbal  variation  was  a 
matter  of  course  in  a  long  poem  transmitted  only  in 
manuscript,  still  more  in  a  long  poem  mainly  trans- 
mitted through  memory,  and  habitually  recited  in 
fragments.  Such  a  poem  is  still  half-fluid,  and  no 
two  copies  of  it  are  exactly  alike.  The  text  of 
Chaucer,  or  of  Fiers  Plowman,  shows  us  what  can 
happen  in  such  cases,  and  what  is  found  to  happen 
unless,  as  with  the  sacred  books  of  the  Jews,  a  literal 
sanctity  was  attached  to  the  precise  wording.  It  may 
be  held  as  certain  that  the  Athenian  recension  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C.  was  no  more  than  what  it  is  reported 
to  have  been,  a  settlement  of  the  text  such  as,  three 
hundred  years  later,  had  to  be  made  over  again  by 
Alexandrian  scholars.  The  mere  fact  that  it  had  to 
be  made  indicates  in  both  cases  that  the  poems  them- 
selves had  been  long  in  existence,  and  that  the 
amount  of  local  variation  in  their  text  was  becoming 
excessive. 

T'An  analogous  fallacy  is  the  view,  to  which  currency 
was  given  a  century  ago  by  the  Romantic  school,  that 


28  HOMER 

the  Homeric  poems  are  "natural,"  in  antithesis  to 
Virgil  for  instance,  or  to  Milton,  who  are  "  artificial." 
So  far  from  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  being  natural  egjfis, 
they  are  artificial  in  a  very  special  and  eminent  degree. 
Those  two  islands  rising  out  of  unplumbed  seas  hold 
the  salvage  of  a  submerged  continent.  They  have 
crowded  into  them  all,  out  of  a  vast  volume  of  poetry, 
|that  the  Hellenic  consciousness  wished  to  save,  or  felt 
'to  be  worth  saving;  or  all,  to  put  it  in  a  different 
way,  out  of  a  dying  world  which  refused  to  die,  because 
>/it  had  in  itself  the  energy  of  enduring  life.  It  is  in 
virtue  of  that  immense  energy  that  they  are  alive  still. 
They  contain  dead  matter,  accidental  accretions,  or 
fragments  of  foreign  bodies  embedded  in  them  without 
being  fully  assimilated ;  and  it  is  in  these  that  we 
find  the  main  clues,  scanty  enough  indeed,  to  the 
history  of  their  growth.  Of  their  origins  we  know  in 
fact  next  to  nothing.  The  national  p^^ry  of  early 
(^reece  dealt,  as  early  national  poetry  loves  to  deal, 
with  a  heroic  period,  compounded  of  history,  imaginat^ 
^on,  and  fa^ble.  It  did  not  begin  to  take  shape  in 
epics  until  that  period,  so  far  as  it  had  ever  existed, 
was  long  over :  it  did  not  take  final  shape  until  a  time 
in  which  the  events  it  deals  with  were  ceasing  to  be 
credible.  This  shape  was  final,  partly  because  it  was 
so  satisfying  that  it  could  not  be  bettered,  partly 
because  the  impulse  of  re-shaping  had  become  ex- 
hausted, and  interest  and  imagination  began  to  move 
along  other  channels.  We  stand  with  regard  to  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  somewhat  as  we  should  stand  to 
Malory's  Mortc    d' Arthur,    if  not   only  all    Arthurian 


HELLAS   AND    HOMER  29 

literature  but  all  European  literature  previous  to  it 
had  perished.  Milton  considered  and  rejected  the 
Arthurian  cycle  for  the  subject  of  his  epic.  Far  more 
impossible  was  it  for  Greek  poets  to  melt  up  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  and  run  them  into  new  moulds.  The 
epic  had  assumed  stable  equilibrium.  The  genius  of 
poetry  turned  to  the  lyric,  and  the  interest  of  poets 
to  the  new  political  life,  the  new  individualism,  the 
new  thought,  art,  religion,  which  were  beginning  to 
stir  throughout  the  Hellenic  world. 

On  the  first  page  of  his  collection  of  the  Greek  lyric 
poets,  Bergk  placed,  with  admirable  insight,  a  fragment 
of  two  lines  preserved  by  Pausanias  from  the  work  of 
Eumelus  of  Corinth.  He  was  reckoned  a  poet  of  the 
epic  cycle ;  and  these  lines  are  written  in  the  Homeric 
hexameter;  but  in  them  the  whole  epic  atmosphere 
has  melted  away.     A  new  day  has  broken. 

Tw  yap  ^IdwixoLTa  KaTaOujuLio^  cTrXeTO  iS/Lotcra 
a  KaOapav  KiOapLV  koI  eXevOepa  a-a/jL^aX  e-^oicra, 

"  For  to  him  of  Ithome  the  Muse  is  well-pleasing 
that  has  a  pure  harp  and  free  sandals" — the  words 
take  us  out  of  the  charmed  Homeric  air  into  the  keen 
chill  and  sharp  shadowless  daylight  of  the  Greek  dawn. 
This  was  three  hundred  years  before  Herodotus :  yet  it 
seems  separated  from  Homer  by  a  still  greater  chasm 
of  thought  and  tone.  The  speech  of  Polydamas,  in  a 
passage  which  the  critics  call  a  late  insertion,  seems 
to  show  the  epic  illusion  disappearing  before  the  same 
new  impulse  of  Hellenic  thought.  The  ideal  Homeric 
world  has  been  tried  and  found  unsatisfying;   man- 


30  HOMER 

kind  had  to  begin  again.  "In  nowise  wilt  thou  be 
able  to  take  everything  on  thyself,"  says  Polydamas; 
"  to  one  God  gives  the  works  of  war  for  his  portion, 
\o  one  the  dance,  to  one  viol  and  song ;  but  in  the 
heart  of  another  Zeus  the  Far-Sounder  lays  excellent 
understanding,  whereof  many  of  mankind  get  profit : 
yes,  and  he  saves  many,  and  himself  best  knows  it."  ^ 

aXX'  otj  'TTcog  djixa  iravTa  Suvi]creaL  avrog  eXea-Qai' 
oXXm  fJLev  yap  eScoKC  Oeog  TroXejULrjia  epya, 
aWw  ^'  6p')(r](TTvv,  €T€p(p  KiOapiv  KOI  ololS^v  ' 
otXXco  <5'  €V  (TTtjOearG-L  TiOel  voov  evpvoira  Zievg 
ecrdXoVy  Tov  Se  re  ttoXXoI  eiravpla-icovT  avOpcoTroi, 
Kal  T€  TToXetg  €crd(jOG-€j  juLaXiarTa  Se  Kavrog  aveyvco. 

This,  whether  it  be  authentic  Homer  or  not,  is  the  full 
authentic  voice  of  Greece. 

By  all  probable  analogy,  which  bears  out,  here  as 
elsewhere,  the  fundamental  soundness  of  tradition 
when  tradition  is  not  misinterpreted  in  order  to  sup- 
port some  irresponsible  theory,  the  great  poets  from 
whose  hands  the  Homeric  epics  were  given  to  Greece 
and  to  the  world  lived  just  at  the  end  of  the  times 
which  were  the  Greek  Middle  Ages.  Our  habitual 
view  of  the  Greek  world  as  ancient  partly  blinds  us  to 
the  fact  that  it  was  in  all  essentials  intensely  modern. 
They  had  had  their  Middle  Ages,  their  centuries  of 
feudalism,  chivalry,  romance,  before  the  time  when 
their  recorded  history  and  their  extant  literature 
(except  so  far  as  this  is  preserved  in  Homer)  began. 

1  II.  xiii.  729-34.     Mr.  Leaf  thinks  1.  731  a  tasteless  interpolation. 
As  to  the  epithet,  opinions  may  differ. 


THE   NEW   WORLD  31 

/Out  of  that  mediaeval  world,  breaking  it  up  and  re- 
placing it,  there  arose  in  Western  Europe  the  nations^ 
round  the  Aegean  ^  the  city-states.  There  was  an 
immense  political  upheaval,  an  immense  expansion  of 
colonisation  and  commerce ;  and  behind  both,  and 
going  deeper,  a  great  liberation  of  thought,  a  great 
passion  of  freedom.  The  Iliad  and  Odyssey  are  the 
Nimage  which  that  modern  world  of  Greece  formed  and 
kept  of  the  mediaeval  world  that  had  preceded  it.  In 
this  sense  they  are  the  first  and  one  of  the  greatest 
achievements  of  the  Greek  genius ;  they  are  compar- 
able to  the  work  done,  at  the  end  of  Greek  life,  by 
Aristotle.  And  just  as  Aristotle,  at  the  time  when 
the  Greek  city-state  was  perishing  for  ever,  legislates 
for  it  in  the  Politics ;  just  as  Dante,  at  the  time  when 
the  mediaeval  Empire  lay  stricken  to  death,  lives  in  a 
dream  of  it  so  intense  that  it  almost  creates  from  its 
own  wreck  the  thing  it  contemplates ;  so  there  is  little 
trace  in  Homer  of  the  new  Greek  world.  All  three 
are  completelj^  absorbed  in  the  story  and  spectacle  of 
a  great  past,  with  no  prevision  of  the  future,  hardly 
with  any  real  appreciation  of  the  present.  ThjaJi«.pa8t 
was,  as  a  matter  of  history,  dead,  if  as  a  matter  of 
history  it  had  ever  existed ;  but  to  them  it  was  living, 
and  through  them  it  is  still  living  to  us. 

The  Icelandic  genius,  when  it  had  perfected  its  epic, 
passed  into  romance.  This  seems  a  natural  progress. 
It  might,  one  fancies,  have  happened  in  Greece  but 
for  the  invasion  of  new  blood,  life,  and  ideas — that  is 
to  say,  but  for  all  that  we  mean  by  Hellenism.  As  it 
was,  the  pure  Greek  mind  was  the  least  romantic  of  ^ 


32  HOMER 

all  in  history.  Hence  perhaps  the  sudden  and  pro- 
found gap  between  Homer  and  the  Greek  poets.  Some 
thirty  years  ago,  Mr.  Lang,  in  a  fine  sonnet,  drew  an 
imaginative  analogy  between  Homer  and  the  Nile. 
It  is  one  full  of  suggestion.  Out  of  trackless  and 
apparently  endless  desert,  the  River  descends  into  a 
land  of  which  it  is  the  highway  and  the  life,  which  it 
fertilises  and  renders  habitable.  Its  own  life  and 
growth  are  remote  and  unknown.  Another  modern 
poet  has  extended  the  analogy  to  poetry  itself: — 

Or  I  am  like  a  stream  that  flows 
Full  of  the  cold  springs  that  arose 

In  morning  lands,  in  distant  hills  ; 

And  down  the  plain  my  channel  fills 
With  melting  of  forgotten  snows. 

Modern  exploration  has  tracked  the  Nile  to  its  source 
and  mapped  out  its  channel  and  its  tributaries.  The 
hidden  course  of  that  other  stream  we  cannot  retrace ; 
it  still  issues  in  all  its  volume  and  splendour  out  of  a 
land  of  mystery :  nee  licuit  populis  parvum  te,  Homere, 
videre. 

That  from  the  whole  mass  of  pre-Hellenic  poetry  all 
that  has  survived  is  jwhat  was  absorbed  into  the  two 
epics  of  the  Wrath  of  Achilles  and  the  Return  of 
Odysseus,  is  one  of  those  things  which  for  want  of  a 
better  word  we  call  accidental.  Other  episodes  in  the 
cycle  of  Troy  offer  equal  scope  for  the  poet.  The 
return  of  Agamemnon  supplied  ample  material  for  the 
greatest  achievements  of  Attic  tragedy,  and  the  War 
of  Troy  after  the  Iliad  became,  still  later,  a  treasure- 
house  of  subjects  for  romantic  treatment.     They  are 


^ 


THE   PRECIOUS   SHORE  33 

not  in  themselves  less  suited  for  epic  handling  than  the 
two  episodes  actually  chosen ;  and  in  point  of  fact  the 
epic  cycle  dealt  with  them  also,  in  the  works  attri- 
buted to  Arctinus  of  Miletus,  Lesches  of  Mitylene, 
Agias  of  Troezen.  Nor  was  the  epic  confined  to  the 
Trojan  cycle.  From  the  Iliad  itself  it  is  clear  that 
whole  bodies  of  epic  story  quite  apart  from  the  tale  of 
Troy  were  current,  and  had  received  the  same  large 
imaginative  treatment:  stories  like  those  of  Belle- 
rophon  and  of  Nio^e,  of  the  Quest  of  the  Golden 
Fleece,  of  the  Hunt  of  Calydon.  But  tliese  two  epi- 
sodes, as  it  happened,  were  chosen  and  dealt  with  by  a 
greater  poet,  and  received  at  his  hands  an  intenser 
poetical  life.  Nature,  as  science  reminds  us,  produces 
life  at  equivalent  cost  of  death ;  nee  xdlam  rem  gigni 
patitur  nisi  morte  adiuta  aliena :  and  the  strong  life  of 
the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  swept  into  itself  whole  bodies 
of  poetry,  not  epic  alone,  that  were  consumed  in  the 
process.  It  is  this  that  gives  them  their  unique 
richness.  They  are  crowded  with  the  treasure  of  a 
thousand  wrecks.  Like  the  Precious  Shore  in  the 
legend  of  Britomartis,  the  ground  is — 

bestrewed  all  with  rich  array 
Of  pearls  and  precious  stones  of  great  assay, 
And  all  the  gravel  mixt  with  golden  ore. 

Shortly  upon  that  shore  there  heaped  was 
Exceeding  riches,  and  all  precious  things. 
The  spoil  of  all  the  world  ;  that  it  did  pass 
The  wealth  of  th'  East  and  pomp  of  Persian  kings. 

y 

I  spoke  of  Shakespeare's  women  as  one  of  the  two 
keys   we  possess  to  the  real  Shakespeare.      Homer's 


34  HOMER 

women  are  likewise  remarkable ;  yet  one  has  the  feel- 
ing throughout  that  they  are  only  fragments,  sparingly 
used  and  jealously  scrutinised,  of  a  lost  world  of  poetry 
that  may  have  held  figures  as  great  as  those  of  Gudrun 
and  Brynhild,  of  Imogen  or  Cleopatra.  In  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  there  are  only  two  women  in  the  foremost 
plane  of  the  action,  Andromache  and  Penelope.  Both 
are  vivid  and  actual,  as  fully  alive  as  the  men  among 
whom  they  move ;  yet  in  both  it  seems  as  if  the  poet 
made  them  live  almost  against  his  will,  or  against  the  will 
of  his  audience ;  as  though  he  would  rather  have  given, 
or  they  would  rather  have  had  given  them,  generalised 
portraits  of  the  faithful  wife  and  affectionate  mother. 
The  recognition  of  Odysseus  by  Penelope  might  have 
been  treated  with  the  same  power  and  tenderness  as 
the  parting  of  Andromache  and  Hector ;  is  the  Greek 
feeling  about  what  was  proper  for  women  responsible 
for  its  being  otherwise,  and  have  the  limits  of  the 
harder  Hellenic  taste  lost  for  us  one  of  the  greatest 
passages  in  poetry?  [Even  in  the  two  great  scenes 
into  which  Andromache  enters,  the  parting  in  the  sixth 
and  the  lamentation  in  the  twenty-second  book,  may 
be  seen  or  suspected  a  restraining  force,  un- Homeric 
in  its  origin,  that  makes  us  think  mainly  not  of 
her,  but  of  Hector.]  Hecuba,  Cassandra,  the  strangely 
romantic  figure  of  Briseis,  mute  except  for  her  beauti- 
ful speech  of  lamentation  over  Patroclus,  hardly  count 
in  the  action^J  ijArete,  strong,  gracious,  capable,  shows 
what  the  women  of  the  Homeric,  world  could  be  like 
if  they  were  not  kept  subordinate.^  Calypso  and  Circe 
are  witch-princesses,  not  human  and  not  designed  to 


HOMER'S   WOMEN  35 

be  human,  though  the  former  at  least  shows  touches 
of  very  human  and  very  womanly  feeling.]  LOne  figure 
there  is  in  the  Odyssey  never  equalled  except  by  the 
creator  of  Miranda  and  Rosalind,  the  girl-princess  of 
Phaeacia.  The  poet  sketched  her  in,  largely,  firmly, 
beautifully,  and  then  stayed  his  hand.  Perhaps  no 
reader — certainly  no  modern  reader — has  not  felt  a 
pang  of  regret  when  she  slips  out  of  the  story  and  out 
of  our  sight.  Whether  the  poet  felt  that  he  had  gone 
too  far,  that  he  had  been  carried  away  by  the  delight 
of  creation  beyond  what  the  scheme  of  the  Odyssey 
would  bear;  whether  he  was  himself  unconscious  of 
the  exquisite  beauty  of  what  he  had  created  ;  whether, 
here  as  elsewhere,  the  hard,  unromantic  Greek  temper 
refused  to  let  the  picture  be  completed,  are  questions 
which  at  once  invite  and  loMe  discussion:  but 
;^^^gigpJjg^_disappears,  and  the  sunlight  seems  to  go 
but  with  her.-y 

^Through  both  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  the  figure  of 
another  woman  moves  in  a  sort  of  golden  mist.  Helen 
of  Troy  has  already  in  them  taken  the  place  which  is 
hers  for  all  time,  of  one  set  beyond  the  bounds  of 
mortality,  a  thing  enskied,  from  whom  a  fire  goes  out 
that  devours  many,  but  on  whom  the  fire  cannot  take 
hold.  Her  words  over  the  body  of  Hector  are  the 
high-water  mark  of  the  Iliad ;  and  it  is  not  of  Hector 
that  they  leave  us  thinking,  but  of  her.  Even  in  the 
domestic  surroundings  of  her  regained  home  in  Lace- 
daemon  she  moves  in  the  same  unearthly  calm,  the 
white  splendour  of  the  Elysian  plain  which  is  destined 
for  her  final  abiding-place,  and  whose  atmosphere  she 


36  HOMER 

carries  about  with  her  even  on  this  earth.  All  voices, 
like  those  of  the  Trojan  elders  on  the  city  wall,  fall 
soft  when  they  speak  of  her.  Only  from  her  own  lips 
is  any  word  of  blame  allowed  to  reach  her.  She  is  the 
one  instance  in  which  the  romance  of  mediaeval  Greece 
has  been  left  in  full  play.  Except  with  Helen,  there 
is  little  in  Homer  of  any  feeling  for  women  that  we 
I  should  call  romantic,  or  even  chivalrous.  There  is  no 
(morbid  sentiment  about  them  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  the  beginning  of  that  harshness  or  chilliness 
which  is  a  characteristic  in  developed  Greek  literature. 
It  is  one  of  the  touches  which  make  Patroclus  different 
from  all  the  other  Achaean  captains,  that  he  had  tried, 
clumsily  perhaps,  but  affectionately,  to  make  poor 
Briseis  happy .^  It  sets  him  on  the  same  plane  with 
Hector.  The  perfect  tact  and  courtesy  of  Odysseus 
to  Nausicaa,  when  he  first  meets  her,  as  again  when 
he  quietly  parts  from  her,  hardly  touch  the  edge  of 
chivalrous  feeling;  and  in  contrast  with  them  we 
have  his  savage  burst  of  anger  at  Melantho,^  when 
he  silences  her  by  threatening  to  have  her  cut  limb 
from  limb — though  no  doubt  she  had  provoked  him 
beyond  bearing  and  deserved  all  she  got.  But  per- 
haps the  most  touching  of  all  Homer's  women  is  one 
obscure  and  unnamed ;  the  poor  maidservant  in  Ithaca 
who  was  weaker  than  the  rest,  and  had  to  go  on 
grinding  all  night  to  finish  her  task  when  the  rest  of 
her  fellow-servants  were  asleep.  There  seems  here  a 
/  touch  of  something  actual  that  had  come  to  the  poet 
himself  and  struck  sharply  through  him  the  sense  of 

1  II.  xix.  205-300.  a  Od.  xviii.  337-9. 


HELEN   OF    TROY  37 

the  obscure  labour  and  unsung  pain  that  underhe  the 
high  pageant  of  life,  war  and  adventure,  the  feats  and 
feasts  of  princes.  Perhaps  in  some  Neleid  palace,  where 
at  a  banquet  under  the  blaze  of  torches  he  had  been 
singing  to  lords  and  ladies,  like  Demodocus  in  Phaeacia, 
of  the  glorious  deeds  of  men,  he  had  passed  out  of 
the  darkened  hall  into  the  chill  of  morning ;  and  there, 
while  dawn  was  yellowing  over  Mount  Latmus,  heard 
a  sharp  peal  of  thunder  across  the  Icarian  sea,  and 
then  from  the  mill-house  in  the  palace  yard  the  voice 
of  a  tired  woman  over  her  quern :  "  They  have  loosened 
my  knees  with  cruel  toil  to  grind  their  barley  meal : 
may  this  dinner  be  their  last."  ^ 

On  that  island  amid  unsounded  seas  the  waves 
washed  up  rough  wreckage  as  well  as  treasure.  Much 
of  the  fighting  in  the  Iliad,  or  in  such  parts  of  the 
Iliad  as  appear  to  be  extraneous  to  its  essential  scheme, 
is  of  this  kind.  But  it  is  unsafe  to  argue  that  such 
passages  are  later  accretions.  Generally  speaking,  we 
cannot  safely  call  any  episode  a  later  accretion  which 
does  not  bear  unmistakeable  marks  of  lateness  in  its 
language.  The  author  of  the  Iliad  dealt  prodigally 
with  the  whole  material  of  the  epic  cycle,  exulting  in 
his  riches,  and  confident,  sometimes  too  much  so,  of 
the  fusing  and  assimilating  power  of  his  own  genius. 
But  it  is  just  this  careless  magnificence,  guided  by  a 
lucid  though  not  always  a  faultless  instinct,  that  has 
given  to  the  world  in  the  Iliad  what  is  probably  on  the 
whole  the  greatest  poem  ever  made.  Study  of  Homer 
from  the  point  of  view  not  of  the  scholar  or  commentator, 

1  Od.  XX.  102-119. 


38  HOMER 

but  of  the  poet — that  inarticulate  poet  whose  presence 
in  us  makes  us  love  poetry — shows  one  more  and  more 
that  what  is  put  in  or  left  out  is  in  nearly  all  cases  put 
in  or  left  out  for  valid  poetical  reasons.  This  is  one  of 
the  chief  rewards,  let  me  parenthetically  add,  of  the 
translator  of  Homer,  whose  work  is  otherwise  apt  to 
be  so  short-lived  and,  except  for  himself,  of  so  little 
value. 

While  we  may  speak  thus  of  the  author  of  the 
Iliad,  it  is  true  also  that  the  Iliad  is  the  work  of  a 
whole  nation.  The  nameless  architect  of  Westminster 
Abbey,  it  has  been  finely  said,  was  not  this  man  or 
that,  but  the  people  of  south-eastern  England.  Like 
a  great  mediaeval  church,  the  Homeric  poems  embody 
the  work  of  whole  guilds  of  artists,  of  whole  ages  that 
appreciated  art.  In  this  sense  the  Iliad  is  a  more 
artificial  poem  than  the  Aeneid  or  the  Paradise  Lost, 
as  Westminster  Abbey  is  than  St.  Paul's,  because  its 
origin  was  more  complex,  and  its  design  lived  and 
grew  all  the  time  it  was  being  executed,  The  architect 
worked  on  a  ground  plan  determined  by  existing 
building.  He  incorporated  much  of  the  earlier 
structure  into  his  own  work.  Sometimes  he  pulled 
down  and  rebuilt,  sometimes  he  remodelled  into  his 
own  style  or  dialect  without  pulling  down.  For 
generations  the  masons  were  busy  on  the  church, 
altering,  extending,  enriching.  But  the  finished 
result  thrills  and  burns  throughout  with  the  ardour 
of  a  continuous  inspiration. 

This  ardour  is  what  sets  the  Iliad  apart  from  all 
other  poetry.     In  the  fine  phrase  of  Dryden,  Homer 


THE   DIVINE   FIRE  39 

"  sets  you  on  fire  all  at  once,  and  never  intermits  his 
heat."  The  notes  of  Homer  given  by  Arnold,  that  he 
is  rapid,  plain,  direct,  noble,  are  all  exactly  true  of  the 
Iliad;  but  together  with  these  qualities  is  another  of 
/  at  least  equal  importance,  that  the  whole  poem  is  at  a 
\  white  heat.  Let  me  quote  from  a  document  now  too 
little  read,  Pope's  preface  to  his  translation,  that  we 
may  see  how  the  Homeric  ardour  kindled  an  age 
which  did  not  err  on  the  side  of  over-enthusiasm.  He 
is  speaking  of  Homer's  "  invention,"  a  technical  term 
now  obsolete,  which  bore  much  the  same  meaning  as 
that  which  we  now  express  by  the  term  constxuclice 
or  vital  imaginaiionj^ 

"  It  is  to  the  strength  of  this  amazing  invention  we 
are  to  attribute  that  unequal  fire  and  rapture  which  is 
so  forcible  in  Homer,  that  no  man  of  a  true  poetical 
spirit  is  master  of  himself  while  he  reads  him.  Every- 
thing moves,  everything  lives,  and  is  put  in  action ; 
the  reader  is  hurried  out  of  himself  by  the  force  of 
the  poet's  imagination,  and  turns  in  one  place  to  a 
hearer,  in  another  to  a  spectator.  The  course  of  his 
verses  resembles  that  of  the  army  he  describes — 

ot  S'  ap   'laau  oxret  re  Trvpl  "^Ooop  iracra  vejULoiTO, 

*  they  pour  along  like  a  fire  that  sweeps  the  whole 
earth  before  it.'  Exact  disposition,  just  thought, 
correct  elocution,  polished  numbers,  may  have  been 
found  in  a  thousand;  but  this  poetic  fire  in  a  very 
few.  Even  in  works  where  all  those  are  imperfect  or 
neglected,  this  can  overpower  criticism,  and  make  us 
admire  even  while  we  disapprove.  Nay,  where  this 
appears,  though  attended  with  absurdities,  it  brightens 


40  HOMER 

all  the  rubbish  about  it,  till  we  see  nothing  but  its 
own  splendour.  This  fire  is  discerned  in  Virgil,  but 
discerned  as  through  a  glass,  more  shining  than  fierce, 
but  everywhere  equal  and  constant ;  in  Milton  it  glows 
like  a  furnace  kept  up  to  an  uncommon  ardour  by  the 
force  of  art ;  in  Shakespeare  it  strikes  before  we  are 
aware,  like  an  accidental  fire  from  heaven;  but  in 
Homer,  and  in  him  only,  it  burns  everywhere  clearly, 
and  everywhere  irresistibly.  This  strong  and  ruling 
faculty  was  like  a  powerful  star,  which  in  the  violence 
of  its  course  drew  all  things  within  its  vortex.  It 
seemed  not  enough  to  have  taken  in  the  whole  circle 
of  arts,  and  the  whole  compass  of  nature,  to  supply  his 
maxims  and  reflections ;  all  the  inward  passions  and 
affections  of  mankind,  to  furnish  his  characters;  and 
all  the  outward  forms  and  images  of  things  for  his 
descriptions;  but  wanting  yet  an  ampler  sphere  to 
expatiate  in,  he  opened  a  new  and  boundless  walk  for 
his  imagination,  and  created  a  world." 

Here  for  once  the  Iliad  has  been  praised  adequately, 
and  one  could  wish  that  the  passage  were  set  to  be 
learned  by  heart  by  all  who  approach  the  study  of 
Homer.  The  fire  of  imagination  lifts  the  height  and 
swells  the  compass  of  a  subject  itself  curiously  con- 
tracted. (_The  Wrath  of  Achilles  is  but  an  episode  in  a 
single  war,  as  war  itself  is  but  an  episode  in  the  whole 
pageant  of  life.  To  this  limit  the  subject  of  the  Iliad 
is  formally  restricted  in  its  opening  lines ;  and  lest  we 
should  lose  sight  of  it,  the  restriction  is  as  formally 
repeated  in  the  speech  of  Zeus  just  before  the  crisis 
of   the   action,   and   emphasised   still   further  by  the 


THE   WRATH  41 

magnificent  image  immediately  following,  of  the  far- 
travelled  man  whose  mind  ranges  with  the  speed  of 
thought  over  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
world.-^  Even  good  critics  have  stumbled  here,  and 
insisted  that  the  action  ought  to  be  carried  on  to  the 
death  of  Achilles.  The  author  of  the  Iliad  may  be 
trusted  to  have  known  his  own  purpose ;  he  certainly 
could  not  have  stated  it  more  clearly.  And  indeed  it 
is  obvious,  if  one  takes  the  pains  to  think  the  matter 
out,  that  the  action  stops  exactly  where  it  should,  and 
that  to  continue  further  would  have  thrown  the  whole 
poem  out  of  scale.  Doubtless  it  might  have  pleased 
Homer  to  choose  a  better  subject  than  that  of  the 
Iliad,  or  at  least  a  different  one ;  but  it  is  equally 
certain  that  it  did  not  please  him  to  do  so. 

The  Wrath  burns  in  a  world  which  it  transforms 
into  fire.  Nowhere  else,  except  in  Dante,  does  fire 
so  penetrate  the  whole  structure  of  a  poem.  It  is 
perpetually  present  in  single  phrases  or  elaborated 
descriptions ;  fire  blazing  in  a  forest,  fire  licking  up 
the  plain  and  scorching  the  river,  fire  signalling  from 
a  besieged  town,  fire  flashing  out  of  heaven,  fire 
leaping  on  a  city  of  men  while  the  houses  crumble 
away  in  the  roaring  furnace,  the  fire  blazing  round 
the  head  of  Achilles  by  the  trenches,  the  fire  that 
streams  all  night  from  the  burning  of  Patroclus,  the 
constant  sense  of  the  day  coming  when  holy  Troy 
itself  will  flare  up  in  the  great  doom's  image.  Ido- 
meneus  in  his  richly  chased  armour  is  "  like  in  his 
strength  to  fire."      The  Trojan  host  follows  Hector 

1  11.  XV.  49-77,  80-2. 


42  HOMER 

"  even  as  flame."  "  Like  flame,"  Hector  leads  them 
on.  In  a  splendid  reduplication  of  phrase  he  declares 
his  resolve  to  face  Achilles,  "yes,  even  though  his 
hands  are  as  fire,  though  his  hands  are  as  fire  and  his 
might  as  flaming  iron."  Four  times  over  the  full 
fury  of  battle  is  summed  up  in  one  intense  line, 
"  Thus  they  fought  in  the  body  of  blazing  fire."  The 
curtain  falls  on  the  slaking  of  the  burning  for  Hector, 
"  as  far  as  the  strength  of  the  fire  had  gone,"  with 
flame-bright  wine  under  the  kindling  fires  of  dawn. 

The  whole  Iliad  moves  in  this  element  of  intense 
ardour.  Ordinary  life  is  going  on  its  course  all  the 
while,  but  we  only  catch  glimpses  of  it.  The  de- 
scription at  the  end  of  Book  VII.  of  the  chaflering  in 
the  Achaean  camp  between  the  soldiers  and  the  pro- 
vision ships  from  Lemnos  gives  briefly  but  vividly 
enough  a  picture  of  the  traffic  of  the  everyday  world 
going  on  alongside  of  the  tragedies  of  kingdoms  and 
the  feats  of  heroes.  Domestic  life  is  absent  from  the 
main  action  except  where,  as  in  the  Hector  and  An- 
dromache episode,  it  is  seen  lit  up  by  the  lurid  light 
of  war.  The  allusions  to  it  are  chiefly  in  similes,  so 
used  as  to  bring  the  action  into  relation  with  an 
opener,  a  wider  and  less  intense  life.  They  are  like 
the  little  bits  of  lovely  rural  or  domestic  background 
in  old  Italian  pictures.  Such  are  the  vignettes  of  the 
poor  spinning- woman  and  her  children  (xii.  433-5), 
and  of  the  boys  harrying  the  wasps'  nest  (xvi.  259-62)! 
or  the  many  pictures  drawn  from  the  life  of  the  herds- 
man or  sailor,  the  hunter,  or  smith,  or  ploughman. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  is  that  (v.  770-1)  of  the 


THE   HOMERIC   BACKGROUND         43 

man  sitting,  like  a  Theocritean  shepherd,  on  a  cliff-top 
and  gazing  over  the  purple  sea  to  where  the  horizon 
melts  in  haze.  The  largest  and  most  highly  finished 
is  the  set  of  scenes  portrayed  on  the  shield  of  Achilles. 
They  give  a  picture  of  the  whole  world — a  world  wider 
than  that  of  the  Iliad,  or  even  than  that  of  the  Odyssey, 
inasmuch  as  it  includes  the  whole  of  ordinary  human 
life.  There  were  wrought  the  earth,  and  sky,  and 
sea;  the  unwearying  sun  and  filling  moon  and  all 
the  stars ;  cities  of  men  in  peace  and  war,  with  their 
weddings,  feasts,  and  lawsuits,  their  raids  and  sieges 
and  battles  ;  ploughing  and  reaping  and  vintage,  river- 
meadows  and  hill-pastures,  tillage  and  hunting.  All 
that  Heimskringla,  that  round  world  encircled  by  the 
outer  seas,  lies  in  cool  daylight ;  the  fighting  is  not  a 
strife  of  heroes  "  mixed  with  auxiliar  gods  ";  the  Ocean- 
river  is  not  bordered  by  the  groves  of  Persephone  or 
approached  from  a  witch's  island ;  there  is  no  word  of 
the  purpose  of  God  being  fulfilled  through  woes  in- 
numerable, or  of  destruction  being  spun  for  men  that 
there  might  be  a  song  for  times  to  come. 
In  the  main^ jLCtiiMi-^f--^a,JQiad.Jtto 
element  is  felt  ev^ir^piherej  it  even  shapes  and  colours 
the  physical  background.  l[t^is  a  land  of  thunder  and 
earthquakes,  of  God-haunted  mpunffins  and  seas. 
Twice  over  the  sky  drizzles  blood.  The  plain  of  Troy 
is  like  an  amphitheatre  ringed  round  with  awful  faces. 
Before  the  city  with  its  God-built  walls,  swept  by  the 
winds  of  the  world,  gods  charge  down  upon  one 
another  in  the  melee,  or  sit  apart  watching  the  battle. 
From  their  cloud-capped  towers,  Zeus    on  Ida   and 


44  HOMER 

Poseidon  on  Samothrace  look  down  into  the  arena.. 
Silver-shod  goddesses  rise,  like  a  mist,  out  of  the  grey 
sea.  Lemnos  is  the  home  not  only  of  the  merchants 
who  supply  the  camp,  but  of  Sleep,  the  brother  of 
Death.  On  the  crest  of  Ida,  hidden  in  a  golden  cloud 
that  the  sun  cannot  pierce,  is  a  marvellous  sub-tropical 
paradise,  where  the  dew-drenched  lotus,  crocus,  hyacinth 
do  not  merely,  as  in  Milton's  cool  Eden,  "with  rich 
inlay  broider  the  ground/'  but  rush  out  of  the  divine 
earth. 

Over  this  scene  passes,  too  often  for  us  to  regard  it 
as  accidental,  a  mystery  of  darkness.  Night,  of  which 
as  a  half-personified  Power  Zeus  himself  stands  in  awe, 
descends  upon  and  involves  the  action.  In  the  cooler 
atmosphere  of  the  Odyssey  night  is  for  sleep,  or  at 
most  for  telling  tales  in  the  hall  of  a  king's  house,  or 
sheltered  in  a  swineherd's  cottage  from  the  wintry 
wind  and  driving  rain.  The  cresset  borne  by  Athena 
in  the  hall  at  Ithaca  to  light  it  up  for  the  moving  of 
the  armour  is  magical,  but  with  no  natural  magic. 
But  much  of  the  action  in  the  Iliad  is  heightened 
by  this  sense  of  natural  magic  where  it  takes  place 
in  the  dark:  the  troubled  council  in  the  Achaean 
camp  and  the  embassy  of  Phoenix ;  the  Dolo- 
neia,  with  its  perilous  night  journey,  where  the 
thick-muffled  silence  is  broken  by  the  cry  of  the 
unseen  heron ;  the  coming  of  the  Winds  from  Thrace 
to  blow  all  night  round  the  pyre  of  Patroclus  and 
sink  with  the  sinking  flame  just  before  dawn;  the 
visit  of  Priam  to  the  camp  and  his  return  with  Hector's 
body.     Even  daylight  is   often   obscured   by  strange 


FIRE    AND    NIGHT  45 

mists  and  supernatural  darkness,  that  now  aid  and  now 
hinder  flight,  within  which  men  struggle  blindly  and 
unseen.  "Thus  fought  they,"  about  the  corpse  of 
Patroclus,  "  in  the  body  of  fire,  nor  would  you  say  that 
either  sun  or  moon  yet  endured,  for  in  that  battle  all 
the  captains  were  wrapt  in  mist,  while  over  the  rest  of 
the  field  warriors  fought  in  clear  air  and  sharp  sunlight, 
and  not  a  cloud  was  seen  on  the  land  or  on  the  hills." 
From  that  "  affliction  of  darkness  and  battle  "  rose  the 
prayer  of  Aias :  "  0  our  Father,  save  us  from  the  dark- 
ness ;  give  sight  to  our  eyes,  and  in  the  light  destroy 
us  if  thou  wilt."  ^ 

On  this  lurid  shifting  background,  now  incredibly 
clear,  now  wrapped  in  a  pall  of  darkness,  the  action 
burns.  The  waves  of  battle  surge  backward  and 
forward  across  the  plain.  Kings  and  stately  women 
look  on  from  the  battlements  of  the  city.  Among  the 
dense  ranks  of  spearmen  the  princes,  like  knights  at 
Cregy  or  Roosebek,  move  ponderously  along  the  fight- 
ing line.  They  are  heavily  sheathed  in  bronze  plate- 
armour,  with  huge  crests  and  immense  leathern  bronze- 
clamped  pavises,  "  like  towers,"  reaching  from  neck  to 
heel.  They  tilt  at  one  another  with  long  fifteen-foot 
spears,  with  sword  and  mace  and  battle-axe.  Helenus 
swings  a  huge  Thracian  sword,  like  Durindana  or 
Morglay,  that  shears  away  head  and  head-piece.  From 
behind  the  knights'  pavises  the  archers,  crouching 
"  like  a  child  by  its  mother,"  rain  their  arrows. 
Teucer,  like  Einar  in  Olaf  Tryggvesson's  last  battle, 
shoots  from  the  side  of  Aias,  striking  down  man  after 

1  II.  xvii.  366-73,  645-7. 


46  HOMER 

man,  until  his  bowstring  breaks,  and  he  betakes  himself 
to  his  heavy  armour  and  long  bronze-headed  spear. 
The  clatter  of  weapons  on  plated  helms  and  cheek- 
pieces  resounds  like  an  armourer's  forge.  Huge  stones 
are  hurled  as  if  from  perrieres  by  knights  who  have 
lost  their  spears;  where  one  hits,  a  prince  crashes 
down  with  a  rattle  of  armour,  "  like  a  tower  amid  the 
throng  of  fight."  Above  all  the  clash  and  din  rise  the 
voices  of  the  captains,  men  of  great  stature  and  pro- 
digious strength.  Some  fight  in  armour  splendidly 
damascened  in  gold  or  silver  and  inlaid  with  enamel. 
Achilles  can  run  at  full  speed  in  all  his  battle-gear,  a 
feat  like  those  told  of  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion.  Aias 
wields  a  thirty-foot  pike  at  the  defence  of  the  ships. 
"  As  when  winter  torrents  flow  down  the  mountains  to 
a  watersmeet  and  join  their  raging  floods  through  the 
deep  ravine ;  "  "  as  when  angry  winds  shaking  a  deep 
wood  in  the  mountain  dells  clash  and  shatter  the  long 
boughs,"  so  they  fight ;  "  and  the  iron  roaring  went  up 
to  the  vault  of  heaven  through  the  unharvested  sky."  ^ 
Here  and  there,  while  winged  arrows  leap  from  the 
bowstring  and  stones  clash  upon ,  shields,  a  mailed 
figure  lies  still  amid  the  whirl  of  dust,  great  and  fallen 
greatly,  his  feats  of  knighthood  forgotten,  in  the  sleep 
of  bronze.  Behind  on  both  sides  rises  the  clatter  of 
chariots  and  the  continuous  shouting  of  the  massed 
soldiery,  close-ranked  with  shield  locked  in  shield  : 
"  the  sound  of  the  two  hosts  went  up  to  the  firmament 
and  the  splendours  of  God."  ^ 

Such  is  the  world  of  the  Iliad,  set  before  us  with 
1  11.  iv.  452-6,  xvi.  765-9,  xvii.  424,  5.  «  II.  xiii.  837. 


THE   SPLENDOUR   OF   LIFE  47 

incomparable  fire  and  splendour  by  the  genius  of  a 
great  poet ;  a  world  as  brilliantly  coloured  as  that  of 
Froissart,  as  tense  and  vivid  as  that  of  Shakespeare. 
/If  we  ask  what  relation  it  has  to  reality,  we  raise  the 
^  whole  question  of  the  relation  of  art  to  life.  The. 
Homeric  world  is  a  world  imagined  by  Homer.  It  is 
placed  in  a  past  time,  evidently  thought  of  as  distant, 
though  there  are  no  exact  marks  of  chronology  any 
more  than  there  are  in  the  Morte  cC Arthur,  The 
destruction  of  the  Achaean  rampart,  after  Troy  had 
been  left  desolate,  is  a  thing  long  accomplished ;  "  so 
were  Poseidon  and  Apollo  to  do  in  the  aftertime."^ 
Helen  in^  the  Iliad,  Alcinous  in  the  Odyssey,  speak  of 
the  whole  war  of  Troy  as  ordained  for  a  theme  for 
/poets  of  a  remote  future.  But  it  was  not  so  distant  as 
to  be  wholly  alien  from  actual  life;  it  was  not  un- 
interesting or  unintelligible  to  the  poet's  audience. 
.  The  life  of  a  nation  is  partly  to  be  sought  in  the 
I  mirror  held  up  to  it  by  its  national  poetry.  But  it 
has  another  and  larger  side.  In  the  Iliad,  as  in 
Froissart,  we  hear  little  of  the  common  people  who 
were  to  become  the  nation  of  the  future,  and  nothing 
at  all  of  the  gathering  forces  which  were  to  sweep 
away  the  mediaeval  world  of  romance  and  chivalry  as 
the  nine  days'  torrential  rain  swept  away  the  Achaean 
rampart  and  laid  the  sand  smooth  on  the  beach.  The 
professional  minstrel  or  guild  of  minstrels  is  not  con- 
cerned with  common  life.  The  common  people  in 
the  Odyssey,  the  "  princely  swineherd,"  Eurycleia  the 
nurse,   Melanthius   and    Melantho,  all  the  rest   upon 

"""^  ^*  1  IL  xii.  34. 


48  HOMER 

the  crowded  living  canvas,  are  only  studied  in  their 
relation  to  the  principal  figures ;  they  are  an  enriched 
background.  In  the  Iliad,  but  for  the  single  burlesqued 
figure  of  Thersites,  there  are  none.  Whether  the 
Homeric  poems  took  shape  at  some  feudal  court  like 
that  of  the  Neleids  of  Miletus,  or  in  later  and  more 
fully  Hellenised  surroundings,  they  are  in  essence  court 
poetry,  adapted  to  the  taste  of  a  court,  or  of  a  public 
which  took  its  taste  from  that  of  a  court.  For  the 
under  side  of  that  brilliant  tapestry  we  have  to  turn  to 
Hesiod. 


Ill 

THE   HOMERIC  EPIC 

There  seems  no  reason  to  discard  the  tradition  whicli 
makes  the  two  bodies  of  poetry  passing  under  the 
names  of  Homer  and  Hesiod  about  contemporary. 
Whatever  amount  of  recasting  took  place  from  time 
to  time  in  the  manual  known  as  the  Works  and  Bays, 
or,  as  the  title  might  be  more  aptly  translated,  the 
Farmer's  Calendar,  the  life  it  sets  before  us  is  substan- 
tially that  of  the  time  in  which  the  Homeric  poems 
were  produced.  The  world  dealt  with  in  the  epic  is 
going  on  somewhere  overhead,  unintelligibly,  only  felt 
by  common  people  through  the  added  pressure  of 
misery  that  it  brings  upon  them.  "  The  son  of  Cronus 
now  and  then,"  says  the  rustic  poet,  *'  destroys  a  broad 
army  or  a  wall,  or  takes  vengeance  on  their  ships  in 
the  sea" — 

aWore  S'  auT€ 
rj  Tcovye  crrpaTOP  cvpvv  airdoKearev  rj  oye  Tei-^o^ 
tj  vea^  €V  irovTW  K.poviSr]g  airoTLVVTai  avTwv} 


This  is  to  him,  and  to  the  people  from  whom  he  sprang 
and  to  whom  he  belongs,  the  whole  upshot  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  Hesiod's  picture  of  life,  vivid 
and    detailed  as  it  is,  has  no   beauty.      The  life  he 

1    W.andD.,2^h-l. 

49  D 


^^\ 


50  HOMER 

knows  is  "hidden,"  obscure  and  laborious:  Kpvyl^avreg 
yap  tyovcTi  Oeol  ^lov  avOpwiroicnv}  It  is  the  wrong 
side  of  the  pattern  of  the  round  world  portrayed 
on  the  shield  of  Achilles,  the  subterranean  crypt  of 
that  splendid  church  with  its  soaring  columns  and 
traceried  vaultings,  its  organ-music  and  window-fires. 
The  difference  of  subject  and  treatment  is  sharply 
given  in  two  phrases :  Homer  sings  of  the  /cXea  avSpwp, 
the  feats  of  heroes,  Hesiod  of  the  epya  avQpwirwvy 
the  industries  of  men.  If  the  Iliad  is  the  Morte 
d! Arthur,  the  Works  and  Days  is  the  Biblia  Pauperum 
of  early  Hellas.  In  the  rare  passages  where  Hesiod 
rises  into  the  epic  tone,  it  is  with  a  difference  of 
accent  and  intention  that  makes  his  language  less  like 
Homer's  than  like  that  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  who 
were  the  first  voice  of  the  democracy.  The  men  of 
the  bronze  age,  he  says,  went  down  nameless  into  the 
pit,  and  terrible  as  they  were,  death  took  hold  upon 
them. 

Kcu  Toi  fi€V  "^eipecra-Lv  viro  a-iperepijcri  SafJicvTeg 
prjarap  eg  evpwevra  Sojulop  Kpvepov  ^AiSao 
vwvujULPOL  •  OdvaTog  Se  Koi.  cKirayXovg  irep  eovrag 
eiXe  /xeXa?,  \ajuL7rp6v  S'  eXnrov  (pdog  tjeXloio. 

The  tone  and  even  the  very  wording  of  this  remark- 
able passage  are  just  those  of  Isaiah  in  one  of  his  grim 
dirges  of  awful  exultation  over  fallen  kings  and  king- 
doms.^ In  a  later  age,  the  heroes  of  Thebes  and  Troy 
perished  in  "  wicked  war,"  no  longer  spoken  of  in  the 
epic  phrase  as  "  man- ennobling."    The  Odyssey  gives  us 

1   W.  and  D.y  42.  ^  ^  ^wd  D.,  152-5  ;  cf.  Isaiah  xiv.  4-23. 


THE    HESIODIC  WORLD  51 

a  flash  of  this  lower  world,  working  itself  up  painfully 
through  the  dark,  in  those  famous  lines  where  the 
ghost  of  Achilles  desires,  if  only  he  might  be  alive,  to 
belong  to  it,  to  be  a  day-labourer  on  the  farm  of  a  poor 
man  like  Perses  of  Ascra.  It  is  a  world  of  hard  work 
and  hunger — alOoira  Xi/uLOPy  "  flame-bright  hunger,"  as 
Hesiod  calls  it,-^  in  one  of  those  curious  phrases  taken 
from  the  court  poets  and  made,  half  in  innocence, 
half  in  satire,  into  an  awkward  ornament.  The  voice 
of  the  people  was  still  inarticulate ;  it  halted  and 
stammered.  The  epic  diction  is  used  in  a  timid, 
laboured  way,  as  the  only  known  means  of  expression 
for  any  continuous  or  considered  statement.  So,  too, 
the  virtues  inculcated  are  those  of  hard  work,  secrecy, 
thrift ;  they  are  virtues  imposed  by  necessity,  not  freely 
chosen.  The  large  epic  generosity  is  for  those  whose 
generosity  costs  them  little.  The  tales  of  poets  are  for 
the  rich,  who  can  afford  to  waste  their  time  listening  to 
them.  In  certain  things — in  a  kind  of  close  humorous 
observation  of  nature,  and  in  the  recognition  of  the 
passion  of  love  between  men  and  women  as  one  of  the 
large  forces  in  life  for  good  or  evil — the  Hesiodic 
poetry  preserves  elements  which  the  epic  at  some 
time  or  other  had  deliberately  discarded,  though  they 
have  left  traces  of  their  presence.  Of  the  two,  Hesiod 
is  much  the  more  religious.  On  one  side  his  religion 
bears  the  original  meaning  of  that  word ;  it  is  formal, 
cramping,  superstitious ;  on  another  it  reaches  deeper 
than  anything  in  Homer.  For  with  Homer  the  Gods 
are  almost  part  of  the  scenery ;  the  moral  government 

1  W.  (md  D.,  363. 


>i^ 


52  HOMER 

of  the  universe  is  a  dim  background  expressed  under 
symbols  like  the  Weirds,  the  Vengeances,  the  Prayers, 
the  Watching ;  the  real  divinity  is  the  unconquerable 
mind  of  man.  Homeric  religion  is  that  of^a^^verning 
class,  simple,  and  not  deep.  If  the  result  is  that  much 
in  Homer  is  frankly  irreligious,  on  the  other  hand 
there  is  no  great  national  poem  so  free  from  supersti- 
tion, or  in  which  there  is  less  of  preaching  and  of  forced 
moral.  Hector's  defiance  of  augury  is  the  tone  of  the 
whole  Iliad.  There  is  no  hint  in  Homer,  for  instance, 
of  the  later  moralisation  that  he  was  betrayed  by  the 
armour  of  Patroclus,  or  dragged  in  death  by  the  belt  that 
had  been  a  gift  from  Aias.  The  relation  of  man  to  the 
divine  powers  is  one  rather  of  traditional  respect  than 
of  either  love  or  fear.  They  are  but  secondary  aids  to 
man's  own  strength  of  spirit  and  sense  of  right.  While 
on  the  whole  the  Gods  love  righteousness  and  hate 
iniquity,  while  their  vengeance  is  conceived  to  follow, 
sooner  or  later,  any  abnormal  transgression,  it  is 
neither  necessary  nor  safe  to  carry  this  doctrine  into 
particulars ;  if  the  matter  be  pressed  further,  they  are 
found  partial,  jealous,  unscrupulous.  The  general 
attitude  towards  religion  is,  to  put  it  in  modern  terms, 
undogmatic  and  undenominational.  It  may  best  be 
illustrated  by  an  often-quoted  passage  of  the  Odyssey. 
Peisistratus  in  Pylos  lays  the  cup  in  the  hands  of  the 
stranger,  bidding  him  make  libation  from  it  and  pass 
it  on  to  his  companion :  "  He,  too,"  he  adds,  "  no  doubt 
prays  to  those  who  die  not,  for  all  mankind  require 
Gods."  The  stranger,  who  is  Athena  in  person,  not 
only  accepts  this  statement  as  adequate,  but  is  highly 


THE   EPIC    RELIGION  53 

pleased  by  its  good  sense/     More  exact  identification 
of  Athena  may  be  left  to  the  theologians. 

The  famous  simile  of  the  devastating  autumn  floods 
in  the  Iliad  approaches  the  Hesiodic  spirit :  ^  they 
are  sent  by  Zeus  in  anger  against  those  "who  judge 
crooked  judgments  in  the  market-place  with  a  high 
hand ; "  but  the  suffering  comes  not  on  the  powerful 
wrong-doers,  but  on  the  people :  /nivvOei  Se  re  epy 
avOpwTTcov — "  the  industries  of  men "  (Hesiod's  very 
phrase)  "are  minished."  We  have  a  touch  of  the 
Hesiodic  world  in  other  similes,  such  as  that  of  the 
poor  widow  waking  to  earn  her  children's  bread,  or 
in  the  repeated  mention  of  disinherited  or  portion- 
less men  who  have  taken  service  as  mercenaries. 
Akin  to  the  Hesiodic  spirit,  too,  is  the  heavy  humour 
of  the  Homeric  captains ;  the  clumsy  jest  of  Patroclus 
over  Kebriones,  which  pleases  him  so  that  he  has  to 
repeat  it  three  times  over ;  or  the  chaff  of  Idomeneus 
about  marrying  a  daughter  of  Agamemnon.^  "  I  am 
a  great  eater  of  beef,"  any  one  of  them  might  say  who 
thought  about  it,  "  and  I  believe  that  does  harm  to  my 
wit."  The  Menelaus  of  the  Odyssey,  a  character  singu- 
larly like  the  Theseus  of  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
is  first  cousin  to  Hesiod's  oppressors,  the  close-fisted, 
heavy-handed  Boeotian  country  gentlemen.  His  fancy 
of  expropriating  the  population  of  a  whole  village  to 
provide  an  estate  for  a  friend,  his  suggestion  to  that 
friend's  son  of  a  tour  through  the  country  with  the 
view  of  picking  up  some  portable  property  in   each 

1  Od.  iii.  40-52.  ^  n  xvi.  384-92. 

3  II.  xvi.  745-50,  xiii.  378. 


54  HOMER 

town  they  visited,^  would  have  invited  very  Hesiodic 
comments  from  the  people  immediately  concerned. 

But  nothing  in  Homer  hints  at  what  is  felt  as  an 
undertone  in  Hesiod,  the  coming  of  democracy,  the 
self-consciousness  of  a  whole  people.  Not  long,  as 
length  of  time  is  measured  in  the  history  of  human 
development,  after  the  Iliad  took  its  final  shape,  the 
world  swung  into  a  new  course.  Hellas  crowned  and 
killed  the  epic.  Only  after  Hellas  had  come  to  be 
absorbed  in  a  half-Hellenised  world  did  men  of  letters 
begin,  like  the  architects  of  revived  Gothic  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  build  anew  in  imitation  of  the 
mediaeval  manner.  In  neither  attempt  was  there  any 
enduring  life. 

Before  this  great  change  had  happened,  or  while 
it  was  happening,  came  the  final  construction  of  the 
Odyssey.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  criticism  of 
Homer,  where  the  Odyssey  is  not  specifically  in 
question,  has  always  tended  to  become  criticism  of 
the  Iliad.  Whatever  difference  of  opinion  there  may 
be  as  to  the  relative  merit  or  the  relative  charm  of 
the  two  poems,  no  one  could  deny  that  the  earlier 
is  also  the  greater.  If  we  are  to  give  a  reason  why 
this  is  so,  it  seems  to  be  that  the  epic  realised  its 
full  potencies  in  the  Iliad — ecr;(e  (pva-ip — just  at  the 
brief  culminating  time  of  the  formative  imagination 
while  it  worked  in  the  epic  material.  Our  Odyssey 
is  held  by  scholars  from  considerations  of  language 
to  be  at  least  a  generation  later  than  our  Iliad. 
Considering   it   as    poetry  we    arrive    at    exactly   the 

1  Od.  iv.  174-7,  XV.  79-85. 


THE   GENIUS   OF   THE   ODYSSEY     55 

same  conclusion.  It  implies  the  Iliad,  as  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  fourteenth  century  implies  that  of 
the  thirteenth.  It  attempts  a  further  advance  upon 
an  altered  method.  But  in  it  poetry  burns  at  a 
lower  heat.  A  similar  change  passed  over  mediaeval 
architecture  with  great  rapidity  towards  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  Men  tried  to  repeat 
and  outdo  what  had  been  done  to  perfection  by 
their  predecessors.  They  produced  work  more  in- 
genious, more  daring  in  construction,  more  richly 
ornamented.  But  it  had  the  seeds  of  weakness  in 
it;  we  begin  to  foresee  the  end.  The  imagination 
of  the  artist  whp  produced  the  Iliad  is  felt  at  a 
furnace-heat  through  the  whole  poem,  even  where 
he  left  great  pieces  of  earlier  work  practically  un- 
touched, where  they  did  not  wholly  fuse  and  coalesce. 
The  Odyssey  is  planned  more  ambitiously,  more 
dexterously;  construction  is  passing  from  an  art  into 
a  science,  architecture  into  engineering.  Nothing 
in  the  Iliad  is  such  a  feat  of  design  as  the  way  j 
in  which  the  first  Jour  books  of  the  Odyssey  do 
no^  bring  Odysseus  on  to  the  scene  at  all  and  yet 
imply  him  through  every  line  as  the  central  figure.  A 
faultless  sense  of  proportion  keeps  the  poem  wholly 
clear  of  divided  interest.  But,  from  whatever  reasons, 
the  genius  flagged  later.  The  Odyssey  reminds  one 
of  a  church  begun  when  architecture  had  reached 
its  perfection,  on  which  the  age  lavished  all  its 
skill  and  riches,  but  where  the  imaginative  impulse 
gave  out  before  it  was  completed,  or  where  part  of 
the  structure,  built  hastily  or  recklessly,  collapsed  and 


56  HOMER 

was  rebuilt  poorly  by  feebler  hands.  It  stands  to  the 
Iliad  in  somewhat  the  same  relation  as  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Beauvais  does  to  that  of  Chartres.  These  two 
churches  are  not  more  than  twenty  or  thirty  years 
apart ;  and  it  is  not  certain  that  a  longer  interval 
separates  the  two  poems.  But  we  have  no  contem- 
pora^Bjpcords,  no  authentic  tradition,  to  help  us  to 
decide. 

All  through,  even  where  it  is  at  its  best,  even  in 
the  matchless  sixth  and  thirteenth  books,  we  have 
this  sense  that  the  Odyssey  is  at  a  lower  heat  than 
the  Iliad.  Up  to  Book  XIX.  nothing  can  be  more 
admirable  than  its  construction.  But  it  is  built  up, 
not  run  into  the  mould  while  still  incandescent.  The 
difference  in  the  opening  of  the  two  poems  is  charac- 
teristic. Instead  of  the  great  triple-bayed  porch, 
high-vaulted  and  glowing  with  colour,  through  which 
we  approach  the  main  action  of  the  Odyssey  in  the 
three  successive  acts  that  unroll  themselves  at  Ithaca, 
at  Pylos,  at  Lacedaemon,  we  pass  through  a  simple 
door  and  at  one  step  are  in  the  vast  nave  of  the 
Iliad.  The  subject  is  set  out  with  extreme  though 
masterly  rapidity.  In  the  first  two  hundred  and 
fifty  lines  we  have  Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  Aias, 
Idomeneus,  Calchas,  Odysseus,  Nestor,  Priam  and 
man-slaying  Hector,  Clytemnestra,  Briseis.  None  of 
them  are  explained ;  the  artist  is  perfectly  sure  of 
himself  and  of  them.  Through  all  the  Iliad  there 
is  this  fiery  rapidity.  Yet  it  is  combined  with  extra- 
ordinary leisureliness.  This  has  to  be  borne  in  mind 
when  we  speak  of  two  notes  of  Homer  being  that  he  is 


THE   EPIC    MOVEMENT  57 

uniformly  plain  and  uniformly  rapid.  No  poet  can  be 
more  terse  or  more  diffuse,  more  simple  or  more  elabo- 
rate. Two  scenes  in  the  Iliad  may  be  cited  as  showing 
these  qualities  in  vivid  contrast.  One  is  the  episode 
of  Glaucus  and  Diomede  in  Book  VI.  Their  meeting 
is  told  in  two  lines ;  then  over  a  hundred  are  filled 
by  their  splendid  and  richly  embroidered  speeches. 
These  include  the  stories  of  the  frenzy  of  Lycurgus 
and  the  life  and  death  of  Bellerophon,  the  latter 
introduced  by  that  noble  simile  of  the  forest  leaves 
which  includes  the  best-known  single  line  in  Homer. 
The  other  is  the  last  battle  of  Hector  in  Book  XXII. 
The  anguish  of  that  hour  is  drawn  out  almost  beyond 
endurance ;  it  seems  to  be  going  on  almost  for  ever, 
as  in  a  dream.  The  action  stands  still,  advances, 
recedes.  An  endless  dreary  procession  of  thought 
circles  through  Rector's  mind  while  retreat  is  still 
possible,  like  ^he  vision  of  a  whole  lifetime  rising 
before  a  drowning  man :  the  reproach  of  Polydamas ; 
the  sickening  thought  of  being  put  to  shame  before 
the  Trojan  women;  the  awful  sense  of  his  own  fatal 
error  of  judgment,  for  which  only  death  can  atone ; 
idle  thoughts  of  giving  up  everything  for  which  the 
war  was  fought,  and  the  recognition  of  their  useless- 
ness ;  at  last,  in  all  but  intolerable  poignancy,  that 
strange  vision  of  his  own  youth,  and  a  boy  and  girl 
whispering  soft  words  to  each  other.  Then  comes 
the  dreadful  moment  when  his  courage  breaks  down ; 
the  long  hopeless  flight  and  fierce  pursuit ;  the  gleam 
of  hope  and  recovery  of  self-control;  the  desperate 
rush  at  Achilles  when  the  goddess  has  tricked  him 


58  HOMER 

out  of  his  spear.  Again  and  again  we  seem  at  the 
very  climax,  and  again  and  again  it  is  deferred.  At 
last  it  comes.  The  spear-head  crashes  through  his 
neck,  and  all  is  over  but  the  last  gasping  words  of 
the  dying  man  and  Achilles'  reply,  swift  now,  terse, 
edged  like  bronze. 

"  Well  I  know  thee  and  see  thee  as  thou  art,  nor 
was  I  to  persuade  thee ;  for  verily  thy  heart  is  iron 
within  thee.  Look  to  it  now  lest  I  become  a  Wrath 
of  the  Gods  on  thee  in  the  day  when  Paris  and 
Phoebus  Apollo  shall  slay  thee,  for  all  thy  valour,  in 
the  Scaean  gates." 

"  Lie  dead :  and  I  will  accept  my  weird  when- 
soever Zeus  and  the  deathless  Gods  are  pleased  to 
accomplish  it." 

It  is  this  combination  of  fiery  speed  and  all  but 
stationary  movement  that  makes  the  Iliad  unique. 
The  movement  of  the  Odyssey  is  more  equable  and 
slower.  The  artifice  of  rhythmic  construction  is  used 
with  perfect  ease  and  mastery,  and  lends  itself  to  a 
treatment  less  elastic  but  more  flexible.  I  can  here 
merely  indicate  the  way  in  which  it  is  applied  to  two 
main  motives  in  the  Odyssey.  One  of  these  is  the 
story  of  Odjsseus'  own  adventures  between  the  fall  of 
Troy  and  the  opening  of  the  action.  The  other  is 
the  story  of  the  fatal  home-coming  of  Agamemnon, 
against  which  the  triumphant  return  of  Odysseus  is 
throughout  set  in  sharp  relief.  Both  are  given  briefly 
by  Zeus  in  Book  I.  The  latter  is  repeated  first  by 
Athena  to  Telemachus,  again  by  Nestor  at  Pylos, 
again  by   Menelaus    at   Sparta    as   it   had   been    told 


CONSTRUCTIONAL   RHYTHM  59 

him  by  the  sea-wizard,  yet  again  by  the  ghost  of 
Agamemnon  himself  in  the  Summoning  of  the  Dead. 
But  the  variations  are  so  skilful  and  so  apt  that  there 
is  no  sense  of  mere  repetition,  only  of  cumulative 
effect.  So  likewise  with  the  tales  of  his  own  adventures 
told  by  Odysseus.  Of  these  there  are  no  less  than 
seven:  the  stories  told  to  Nausicaa  in  Book  VI., 
to  Arete  and  Alcinous  in  Book  VII.,  to  the  whole 
Phaeacian  court  in  Books  IX.  to  XII.;  the  adroit, 
swiftly-invented  account  he  gives  of  himself  to  Athena 
when  he  meets  her  on  the  beach  in  the  heavy  morning 
mist ;  the  elaborate  ^nd  plausible  romance  told  to 
Eumaeus  in  Book  XIV.,  and  partly  repeated  to 
Antinous,  with  such  modifications  as  suited  the  imme- 
diate occasion,  in  Book  XVII. ;  finally,  the  extraordi- 
nary story  he  tells  to  Penelope  on  the  very  eve  of  the 
suitor-slaying,  for  no  other  reason,  as  it  would  seem, 
beyond  sheer  excitement  and  delight  in  his  own  powers 
of  invention.  In  these  and  other  instances  the  devices 
of  postponement  and  varied  repetition  are  used  with 
perfect  skill  and  effect  up  to  the  crisis  of  the  action, 
the  scene  in  the  hall  at  Ithaca  towards  which  the 
whole  poem  has  been  leading,  when  all  the  company 
gradually  go  out,  Athena  holds  the  cresset  while 
Telemachus  and  his  father  remove  the  armour,  and 
at  last,  by  the  glimmer  of  the  midnight  fire,  Odysseus 
and  Penelope  are  face  to  face  alone. 

And  then  nothing  happens.  Just  at  this  point 
the  constructive  power,  until  then  masterly  and  fault- 
less, gives  way ;  and  the  end  of  the  Odyssey,  to 
put  it  bluntly,  is  bungled.     The  artifice  of  postpone- 


60  HOMER 

ment  has  been  tried  once  too  often ;  and  though  all 
the  resources  of  poetry  are  lavished  on  it,  the  action 
is  only  set  agoing  again  by  an  obvious  effort.  There 
are  still  indeed  incidents  and  passages  of  great  beauty. 
Nothing  could  be  finer  than  the  vision  of  Theoclymenus 
at  the  banquet,  when  he  cries  out  that  the  sun  is 
eclipsed,  and  sees  the  suitors  wrapped  in  a  pall  of 
night,  with  tears  running  down  their  cheeks,  and  blood 
spattered  on  the  walls ;  or  the  scene  of  the  actual 
drawing  of  the  bow;  or  that  where  Odysseus  strips 
off  his  beggar's  rags  and  leaps  up  tense  and  erect  on 
the  door-sill,  pouring  the  arrows  down  before  his  feet ; 
or  the  summoning  of  Eurycleia  from  the  locked  house 
where  nothing  had  been  seen  and  nothing  heard  except 
scuffling  and  groans,  to  find  Odysseus  standing  in  the 
hall  alone,  and  round  him  a  great  pile  of  dead  men. 
But  the  trial  of  the  bow  is  introduced  clumsily,  with 
insufficient  motive ;  details  of  the  battle  in  the  hall  have 
been  noted  by  all  critics  as  partly  inconsistent  and  partly 
unintelligible.  The  action  is  merely  retarded  by  the 
arrival  of  Philoetius  by  the  ferry,  and  the  fresh  insults 
of  Ctesippus;  here,  and  still  more  so  in  the  scene 
known  as  the  Second  Summoning  of  the  Dead,  the 
artifice  of  repetition,  like  the  artifice  of  postponement, 
is  used  once  too  often,  and  with  inferior  skill;  and 
then  the  poem  is  huddled  up  to  a  scrappy,  strained, 
ineffective  conclusion.  The  best  Alexandrian  critics 
saw  in  the  whole  of  the  twenty-fourth  and  a  portion 
of  the  twenty-third  book  the  work  of  a  continuator. 
This  may  be  so  ;  but  it  is  earlier  that  the  organic 
structure  and  movement  begin  to  break  down.     The 


THE   CHANGE   OF   LIFE  61 

exact  turning  point  is  the  speech  of  Penelope  in 
lines  509  to  553  of  Book  XIX.  It  is  a  brilliant  and 
desperate  effort  to  regain  the  high  tension  that  had 
been  let  slack  in  the  Niptra.  It  includes  the  famous 
nightingale-simile,  a  perfect  miracle  of  language,  but 
language  that  is  passing  from  epic  into  lyric.  Pene- 
lope's description  of  her  dream  and  awakening  which 
follows  it,  is  nearly  as  remarkable ;  it  has  a  simplicity 
almost  like  that  of  Wordsworth ;  but  we  feel  in  it 
just  a  suspicion  oi  simplesse ;  its  tone  is  that  not  of 
the  epic  but  of  the  idyl.  With  all  its  mixed  lyric 
and  idyllic  beauty,  the  passage  is  in  its  artifice  less 
Homeric  than  Tennysonian.  It  is  the  swan-note  of 
the  dying  epic.  We  have  passed  at  one  step,  as  it 
were,  from  Homer  to  Theocritus. 

Once  this  step  had  been  taken,  it  could  not  be 
retraced.  The  change  is  not  in  language,  nor  in 
metre,  nor  superficially  at  least,  in  handling;  it  is  a 
change  in  the  meaning  of  poetry.  And  this  in  turn 
is  due  to  a  change  in  the  way  of  regarding  and 
interpreting  life.  Now  and  then  in  Homer,  but  very 
rarely,  we  come  on  a  passage  like  that  of  the  pigeon- 
shooting  in  Book  XXIII.  of  the  Iliad,  which  we  can 
say  at  the  first  glance  and  without  hesitation  is  un- 
Homeric,  which  stands  as  glaringly  apart  from  its 
surroundings  as  a  seventeenth-century  monument  in 
a  thirteenth-century  church.  But  the  difference  in 
spirit  is  generally  much  subtler  and  more  indefinable. 
For  testing  what  is  really  Homeric,  this  changed 
spirit,  and  not  apparent  imitation  or  repetition,  is  the 
touchstone  to  be  applied. 


62  HOMER 

—^  All  art  is  imitation ;  all  mediaeval  art  is  founded  on 
repetition.  The  artifice  of  repetition,  clearly  present 
as  a  structural  principle  in  the  Iliad,  and  used  with 
such  elaborate  skill  in  the  design  of  the  Odyssey,  is 
characteristic  of  both  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  in  its 
application  to  language.  Much  certainly,  probably 
most,  of  what  is  suspected  as  copying  by  a  later  hand 
is  deliberate  and  original ;  like  the  recurrence,  with 
subtle  variations,  of  the  patterned  figures  in  a  tapestry 
or  the  carved  figures  in  a  processional  frieze.  For 
the  genius  of  the  epic  this  kind  of  repetition  was  an 
essential  element  in  design.  We  judge  all  these  kinds 
of  art  stupidly,  if  we  apply  to  them  rules  of  com- 
position and  perspective  which  are  relevant  to  other 
and  later  kinds  of  art.  Whether  on  a  larger  or  on  a 
smaller  scale  this  has  always  to  be  borne  in  mind  with 
Homer.  We  misjudge  the  Aristeia  of  the  captains — 
Aias,  or  Diomede,  or  Idomeneus — in  their  relation  to 
the  scheme  of  the  Iliad,  if  we  fail  to  realise  that  the 
epic  perspective,  like  that  of  the  early  painting,  repre- 
sents the  secondary  planes  on  practically  the  same 
scale  as  the  primary.  Let  me  quote  some  luminous 
words  of  Burne-Jones,  given  in  his  Life,  regarding  the 
theory  and  practice  of  mediaeval  art  as  it  was  under- 
stood by  the  two  artists  who  in  our  own  times  were 
most  in  sympathy  with  it.  "  We  have  lost  one  thing 
in  the  world,"  he  says,  "  which  we  need  never  expect 
to  get  back  again,  and  that  is  the  right  to  put  a  figure 
/n  the  background  of  the  same  size  as  those  in  the 
front.  The  Greeks  did  it,  and  the  old  Italians,  and 
it  used  to  be  quite  right,  but  we  can't  any  longer. 


EPIC   DECORATION  63 

Figures  diminished  by  distance  are  a  bore.  Morris, 
who  was  so  rightly  minded,  as  he  always  was,  had  a 
very  true  saying  about  it.  He  was  fond  of  insisting 
that  heads  in  decoration  ought  to  be  of  exactly  the 
same  size,  and  go  one  just  behind  the  other  like 
shillings  in  a  row."  The  art  of  Homer,  it  cannot  be 
too  much  kept  in  mind,  is  in  many  essentials,  like  his 
world,  mediaeval. 

Just  so  likewise  we  misjudge  the  repetition  of  lines 
or  phrases  or  passages,  if  we  forget  that  such  repetition 
was,  like  that  of  flowers  in  a  tapestry  or  diapers  in  a 
painting,  deliberate  in  the  artist  and  delightful  to  his 
audience.  It  is  in  view  of  this  that  we  must  regard 
what  has  been  called  epic  slang,  the  lavish,  repeated 
use  of  stock  epithets,  stock  phrases,  stock  incidents  or 
reflections — all  that  a  more  fastidious  taste  or  a  more 
easily  exhausted  interest  disparages  as  the  journalism 
of  the  epic. 

In  the  process  through  which  poetry  comes  into 
existence  at  all,  this  note  of  repetition,  of  pattern,  is 
an  essential  element.  Some  patterns  are  mechanical ; 
but  that  is  a  very  different  thing  from  saying  that  art 
can  dispense  with  pattern.  It  is  difficult  to  say — and 
certainly  the  artist  could  not  say  himself — at  what 
point  the  evolution  of  pattern  ceases  to  be  creative 
and  becomes  a  mechanism,  or  a  trick.  The  question 
has  been  raised,  and  keenly  debated,  in  other  forms  of 
art  than  poetry — one  notable  instance  is  as  regards 
Mozart's  music.  The  inspiration — to  use  that  con- 
venient word  without  being  committed  to  any  of  its 
various    meanings — fluctuates    between    limits   which 


64  HOMER 

are  not  clearly  assignable.  It  will  be  a  matter  partly 
of  artistic  sensitiveness,  partly  of  trained  judgment, 
partly  of  sympathy  between  the  poet  and  the  reader 
of  the  poetry,  to  distinguish  in  Homer  or  in  any  other 
poet,  the  illuminating  from  the  otiose  epithet,  the 
imaginative  or  musical  wording  of  a  phrase  from  the 
formulary  tag,  the  impassioned  statement  of  truth 
from  the  truism  or  commonplace.  The  fire  of  poetry 
burns  at  varying  degrees  in  any  large  poem ;  its  living 
and  quickening  power  were  not  originally  the  same 
throughout,  and  have  withstood  the  action  of  time  still 
more  variably.  The  business  of  its  interpreters,  the 
reward  of  its  lovers,  is  to  revitalise  as  much  of  it  as 
possible.  This  is  a  work  implying  thought  and  study 
as  well  as  sympathy.  No  labour  is  wasted  in  this 
thought  and  study ;  for  we  shall  often  find  after  it, 
that  the  dull  line  or  phrase  or  passage  becomes  irra- 
diated ;  that  we  see  at  last  what  we  are  meant  to  see, 
and  feel  as  the  poet  felt.  It  is  in  such  a  way  that 
the  interpretation  of  poejbry,  the  otherwise  arid  task  of 
the  commentator,  may  be  of  real  use. 

Perhaps  of  all  the  ornaments  of  style  the  epithet  is 
the  one  which  has  been,  and  is,  most  abused  in  poetry, 
or  for  that  matter  in  prose.  "Very  good  orators, 
when  they  are  out,"  Rosalind  tells  us,  "  they  will  spit ;  " 
and  for  poets  lacking  matter  the  cleanliest  shift  is  to 
fall  back  on  epithets,  which  like  rouge  and  padding 
are  meant  to  conceal — while  they  often  in  fact 
emphasise — the  want  of  real  colour  and  substance. 
But  in  its  inception,  and  in  its  proper  use,  the  epithet 
has  the  effect  of  immensely  increasing  and  enriching 


THE   HOMERIC   EPITHET  65 

the  poet's  vocabulary.  Not  attached  to  the  word  as  an 
ornament,  but  welded  on  to  it  as  an  integral  part  of 
the  meaning,  it  yields  an  unlimited  supply  of  what  are 
in  effect  new  words,  free  from  the  harshness  of  novelty, 
easily  understood,  adaptable  to  the  expression  of 
varying  shades  of  meaning.  By  the  variation  of 
epithets  the  poet  has  command  of  a  whole  set  of  verbal 
symbols  to  express  a  single  thing  or  person  in  different 
aspects,  at  different  angles,  in  the  reflected  colour  of 
different  surroundings.  Poetry,  when  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  took  shape,  had  become  a  matured  art  with 
its  recognised  symbols,  counters  that  had  already 
worn  smooth  or  were  wearing  smooth  by  use.  But 
these  symbols  in  most  cases  must  have  still  retained 
much  of  their  original  value;  they  were  not  inter- 
changeable ;  each  stood  for  something  definite  to  the 
poet's  imagination,  and  conveyed  a  substantive  mean- 
ing to  his  hearers.  To  realise  that  meaning  often 
enables  us  to  recapture  a  whole  point  of  view, 
even  a  whole  aspect  of  life  or  nature  as  it  presented 
itself  to  the  poet,  that  we  should  otherwise  have 
missed. 

Various  kinds  of  epithet  may  be  distinguished  in 
Homer.  There  is  the  proper  or  established  attribute, 
which  is  so  associated  with  its  subject  that  it  may  be 
used  almost  indifferently  with  or  without  the  noun 
substantive.  This  often  carries  something  of  a  ritual 
or  hieratic  significance.  The  Cloud-Gathering,  the 
Grey-Eyed,  the  Golden- Spindled  are  epithets  well  on 
their  way  to  becoming  proper  names,  like  the  Virgin 
or  the  Almighty.     So,  too,  with  princes  and  heroes ; 

E 


66  HOMER 

the  Fleet-Footed  and  the  Many-Counselled  are  known 
without  any  further  name  as  the  principal  figures  of 
the  Iliad  and  Odyssey :  so  even  with  natural  objects 
invested  with  some  special  sacredness ;  we  find  the 
Wet  spoken  of  simply,  alongside  of  the  fuller  phrase 
that  speaks  of  the  wet  paths  of  the  sea. 

Again,  there  is  a  whole  class  which  name  a  place  or 
object  in  what  we  might  call  its  heraldic  colours ;  thus 
it  is  that  Homer  speaks  of  windy  Troy,  wide-lawned 
Elis,  hollow  -  sunken  Lacedaemon,  horse  -  pasturing 
Argos.  Or  we  have  a  whole  group  of  words  that  are 
attached  on  different  occasions  to  the  same  object,  and 
reflect  light  on  one  another.  Such  are  the  epithets 
"  rose-footed  "  and  "  saffron-gowned  "  applied  to  dawn ; 
such,  applied  to  the  sea,  is  a  group  of  three,  "  violet- 
coloured,"  "  wine-bright,"  "  unvintaged."  They  are 
used  singly,  never  together;  but  each  implies  the 
others,  and  they  convey  (or  any  one  of  them  conveys 
in  the  reflected  light  of  the  others)  a  complex  image, 
not  descriptive  only  but  in  the  highest  degree  imagina- 
tive. Other  complex  epithets  are  so  curiously  con- 
structed as  to  make  a  whole  picture  by  themselves, 
without  interrupting  the  movement  of  the  poem  by 
a  long  parenthesis,  or  burdening  it  with  a  formal 
description.  These  are  peculiarly  Homeric  in  the* 
richness  of  their  sound  as  well  as  of  their  meaning ; ' 
words  like  a\i/ULvpi]€VTa,  eivocricpvWov,  aiOprjy€veT7}9i  the 
"  seaward  -  murmuring  river,"  the  "  foliage  -  tossing 
mountain,"  the  "crystal-cradled  north  wind."  Two 
of  them  applied  to  war,  "  man-ennobling  "  and  "  mortal- 
destroying  " — /BpoToXoiyog  and  KuSidi^ipa — ^give  between 


EPIC   ENRICHMENT  67 

them  something  of  the  whole  moral  purpose  of  the 
Iliad. 

We  cannot  always  read  such  meaning  into  the 
Homeric  epithets.  Sometimes  they  seem  to  be  used 
from  mere  habit;  sometimes  more  to  fill  up  a  line 
than  for  any  larger  purpose;  sometimes  for  simple 
pleasure,  from  intoxication  with  the  beauty  of  sound 
which  even  now  is  irresistible  in  Homer,  and  which 
must  have  meant  so  much  more  when  it  was  all  new. 
As  the  raw  material  of  poetry,  the  Greek  language 
stands  alone.  A  language  that  can,  quite  simply  and 
unaffectedly,  render  the  words  "  from  ships  and  huts  " 
by  vewv  airo  kou  KXicridcov,  or  "  sunrise "  by  ai/roXal 
ijeXloLo,  has  no  need  to  bolster  itself  out  with  merely 
ornamental  epithets ;  yet  to  this  beauty  of  sound  the 
epithets  contribute  largely,  and  often  we  need  look  no 
farther  than  this  for  their  motive,  or  at  least  for  their 
justification. 

Consider  now  a  poetical  ornament  on  a  larger  scale, 
which  is  equally  characteristic  in  Homer,  the  similfi. 
In  poetry  of  a  low  heat  this  tends  to  become  merely 
ornamental.  It  serves  to  enrich  a  passage  which  would 
otherwise  be  bald  or  languid ;  and,  as  such  passages 
will  occur  in  a  long  narrative  poem,  it  has  its  legitimate 
use  for  that  purpose.  But  in  poetry  of  a  high  tem- 
perature any  enrichment  which  is  mere  decoration  is 
out  of  place;  it  only  interrupts  and  retards,  unless 
together  with  its  quality  as  ornament  it  illuminates  its 
context.  This  it  can  do  by  throwing  a  fresh  imaginative 
light  on  the  action  to  which  it  is  attached,  either  by 
reinforcing  it  or,  which  is  the  more  frequent  use,  by 


68  B#MER 

relieving  it  upon  a  background  differing  in  tone,  yet 
such  that  the  two  tones  produce  a  single  harmony. 
In  all  these  uses  the  Homeric  simile  reached  perfection. 
The  nightingale  passage  in  the  Odyssey,  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  made,  is  perhaps  the  best 
instance  of  a  simile  used  for  purely  decorative  value. 
But  there,  as  we  noted,  it  is  on  the  edge  of  misuse. 
It  is  an  ornament  detachable  without  loss,  and  there- 
fore for  the  essential  purposes  of  the  poem  irrelevant 
in  spite  of  its  great  beauty.  It  would  be  easy  to  in- 
stance a  score  of  others,  in  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey, 
which  to  a  like  beauty  of  language  add  the  imaginative 
light,  and  become  part  of  the  essence  of  the  scene  or 
action  they  illustrate :  that,  for  instance,  of  the  rain- 
drooped  poppy,  in  "some  tempestuous  morn  in  early 
June,"  Kap-TTw  BpiOo/iievr]  voTLrjcrl  re  €iapivij(nv,  to  which 
the  son  of  Priam  is  compared  as  he  sinks  under  the 
V  arrow  of  Teucer ;  or  that  of  the  sea  churned  into 
crested  blackness  by  cross  winds  and  covering  the 
beach  with  seaweed,  used  as  a  comparison  for  the 
confusion  and  gloom  of  the  Achaean  army  when  they 
have  been  driven  back  on  the  ships  and  only  nightfall 
has  saved  them  from  utter  rout ;  or  that  of  the  great 
snowfall,  "  on  a  winter  day  when  Zeus  the  Counsellor 
has  set  him  to  snow,  and  lulls  the  winds  and  snows 
continually,  until  he  has  covered  the  high  hill-peaks 
and  jutting  headlands,  and  the  grassy  plains  and  rich 
tillage  of  men,"  to  which  is  compared  the  thick  shower 
of  stones  from  both  sides  in  the  fast-locked  battle  at 
the  wall.^  In  other  instances  enrichment  is  accumulated 

^  11.  viii.  306-8,  ix.  4-7,  xii.  278-286. 


THE   HOMERIC    SIMILE  69 

in  order  to  dilute  rather  than  to  concentrate ;  not  to 
add  imaginative  value  to  the  action,  but  because  the 
action  is  at  so  high  a  tension  that  it  requires  relief, 
that  it  not  only  will  bear  any  amount  of  decoration, 
but  demands  it.  Such  is  the  triple  inverted  simile 
which  introduces  the  rally  of  the  Achaeans  when 
pent  in  on  the  beach,  where  the  sea  washed  up  to 
the  Argive  huts  and  ships;  and  the  shouting  of  the 
charging  hosts  was  so  terrible  that  neither  thunder 
of  breakers,  nor  the  roar  of  blazing  fire,  nor  the 
voice  of  the  furious  wind  was  like  to  it.^  Or  en- 
riched ornament  may  be  used,  not  where  the  action 
is  at  a  higher  tension,  but  where  it  is  more  formal 
and  stately.  The  celebrated  instance  is  the  accumu- 
lation of  no  less  than  six  fully  elaborated  similes 
before  the  Catalogue  in  Book  II.  of  the  Iliad,  like 
trumpets  sounding  over  a  clear  space  before  the  coming 
of  a  great  procession.  Most  commonly,  however,  these 
comparisons  reflect  upon  some  tense  situation  or  violent 
action  the  quietness  of  nature  or  of  natural  things ; 
often  with  a  sense  of  beauty  more  delicate  and  obser- 
vant  than  we  find  again  until  nature  was  looked  on  by 
the  eyes  of  Western  Europe,  and  with  a  feeling  for  the 
beauty  of  common  life  which  keeps  the  atmosphere  of 
the  poem  cool  and  sane.  Such  are  the  pictures  of  the 
hawk  poising  above  the  cliff ;  of  the  slim-foliaged  ash 
seen  against  the  sky  on  a  hill ;  of  the  blossomed  olive 
grown  in  a  solitary  place  where  a  spring  bubbles  up, 
and  it  is  blown  by  all  the  breezes  and  shimmers  into 
silver  ;  of  the  woodman  preparing  his  dinner  in  a  dell 

1  II.  xiv.  392-401. 


70  HOMER 

among  the  hills,  or  the  gardener  guiding  runlets  of 
water  from  a  spring  to  ripple  down  over  the  trenched 
slopes  of  his  garden-plot/  The  invention  of  this  class 
of  ornament  has  been  staled  by  use ;  and  it  lends 
itself  with  horrid  facility  to  the  hands  of  the  minor 
poet.  But  it  was  an  invention  of  the  first  importance ; 
and  it  has  never  been  used  with  greater  tact  and  skill 
than  in  the  Homeric  poetry  where  it  makes  its  first 
appearance.  The  effect  of  these  spaces  of  cool  air  and 
quiet  daylight  in  the  composition  is  magical.  One 
more  instance  may  be  quoted,  not  only  for  its  own 
beauty  of  language  but  for  the  way  in  which  it  inter- 
laces the  themes  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey.  On  the 
voyage  from  Aeolia,  just  before  Odysseus  succumbs  to 
sleep,  outworn  by  superhuman  watchings,  "  On  the 
tenth  day,"  he  says,  "  the  tilled  fields  of  my  native 
land  came  in  sight,  and  now  we  were  so  near  that  we 
saw  the  kindling  of  fires."  The  same  situation  is  used 
in  the  Iliad  as  a  piece  of  rich  ornament  in  the  de- 
scription of  the  going  forth  of  Achilles  to  battle.  "  As 
when  over  the  sea  there  appears  to  sailors  the  bright- 
ness of  a  burning  fire,  that  burns  high  among  the  hills 
in  a  lonely  farm ;  then  storm -blasts  bear  them  off 
unwilling  over  the  sea,  where  the  fishes  go,  far  from 
their  own  people."  The  picture  is  the  same,  but  the 
point  of  view  is  reversed.^  Not  otherwise  might  a 
Tuscan  or  Umbrian  painter  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
Piero  di  Cosimo  or  Pinturicchio,  show,  through  a 
window  in  his  picture,  a  background  of  sea  with  the 

1  II.  xiii.  60,  180,  xvii.  53-6,  xi.  8G-9,  xxi.  257-62. 

2  11.  xix.  375-8 ;  Od.  x.  29,  30. 


THE   HOMERIC   TEMPER  71 

ship  of  Odysseus  and  the  points  of  fire  on  the  dusking 
island. 

But  it  is  neither  by  his  epithets  nor  by  his  similes, 
nor  by  that  kind  of  ornament  which  these  two  specific 
means  of  poetical  effect  represent,  that  a  poet  takes 
his  rank,  or  that  great  poetry  is  created.  For  that 
we  have  to  turn  to  a  higher  plane  of  thought  and 
feeling.  The  saying  that  poetry  is  a  criticism  of  life 
has  this  much  of  truth  in  it,  that_ppetry:jdfipenda-on 
its  grasp  of  life  for.  high,  poetic  -  quality.  It  is,here  that 
all  generations  have  instinctively  felt  the  greatness  of 
the  Homeric  poems.  Their  whole  view  and  handling 
of  life,  not  as  a  mere  pageant  but  as  the  arena  of  great 
energies,  are  unsurpassed  in  elevation  and  completeness.  ^ 
In  them  human  life  is  poised  among  vast  spiritual 
forces,  and  glitters  "like  a  jewel  hung  in  ghastly 
night "  against  a  dark  background  lit  up  by  splendid 
courage,  clear  insight,  unconquerable  will.  The  spirit 
of  man  rises  in  them  beyond  circumstance,  beyond 
divine  control,  even  beyond  fate.  Only  in  the  Northern 
Sagas  (the  ancestral  epic  of  our  own  race  as  Homer 
was  of  the  Greek)  is  man  so  great,  and  the  moral  effect  ' 
of  the  poetry,  as  distinct  from  its  moral  lesson,  from 
the  specific  truths  to  be  drawn  from  it,  so  uplifting 
and  so  sustaining.  In  this  sense  the  lines  of  Horace 
in  which  he  sets  Homer  above  the  Greek  philosophers 
express  what  is  true  of  him  as  it  is  true  of  all  the 
highest  poetry.  To  this  splendid  energy  of  human 
life  the  Gods,  "  who  live  easily,"  take  really  a  second 
place.  When  Zeus  sits  on  the  mountain  summit 
''  rejoicing  in  his  glory,  looking  on  Troy  town  and  the 


72  HOMER 

Achaean  ships,"  it  is  they  and  not  he  who  are  at  the 
centre  of  the  interest.  The  picture,  at  the  end  of 
Book  I.  of  the  IHad,  of  the  day-long  feast  in  Olympus, 
where  the  Muses  sing  to  the  viol  of  Apollo,  is  the 
implied  background  throughout  to  a  foreground  which 
gives  the  more  impressive  spectacle  of  earth,  with  its 
war  and  wandering,  its  burden  of  toil  and  trouble  and 
death.  The  Homeric  idealisation  of  life  is  not  in  any 
such  golden  world,  above  or  below  earth,  in  a  conjec- 
tured future  or  a  fabulous  past,  but  in  the  actual 
deeds  of  men,  so  predestined  and  so  accomplished  that 
they  become  a  song  for  times  to  be. 
~~^  This  unmatched  power  to  express  the  sense  of 
human  greatness  is  what  above  all  else  makes  Homer, 
in  the  phrase  applied  to  him  by  a  later  Greek  poet, 
''  the  ageless  mouth  of  the  world."  It  is  concentrated 
in  such  words  as  the  famous  "  Forward  " — 'loiJLev — of 
Sarpedon  ;  the  ''  Endure,  0  heart,"  of  Odysseus ; 
Hector's  "  One  omen  is  best,  to  defend  the  fatherland." 
So,  too,  a  whole  criticism  of  life  is  concentrated  in  many 
passages  that  have  become  keywords  for  mankind :  the 
words  of  Zeus  in  the  prologue  to  the  Odyssey,  "  Alas, 
how  idly  do  mortals  blame  the  Gods,  saying  that  from 
us  come  their  evils,  while  they  themselves  by  their 
own  infatuation  have  sorrows  beyond  what  is 
ordained ; "  or  the  lines  that  occur  in  both  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  "  Howbeit  hereafter  shall  he  suffer  whatsoever 
fate  spun  for  him  with  the  thread  at  birth,  when  his 
mother  bore  him ; "  or  the  summing  up  of  the  joy  of  life 
in  the  words  of  Odysseus,  "  Better  and  fairer  is  nothing 
than  this,  when  husband  and  wife  keep  house  together 


HOMER   AND   LIFE  73 

with  one  heart  and  mind  between  them,  and  they 
themselves  know  it  best ; "  or  of  its  sorrow  in  those  of 
Menelaus,  "  Of  all  things  comes  satiety,  even  of  love 
and  sleep  and  of  sweet  singing,  though  of  these  a  man 
would  sooner  take  his  fill  than  of  battle."  -^  So  it  is, 
too,  pre-eminently  in  two  more  passages:  one  the 
famous  sentence  of  Glaucus,  which  has  never  lost  its 
freshness  or  its  piercing  beauty  through  millionfold 
repetition :  "  Why  enquire  of  my  lineage  ?  Even  as 
the  generations  of  leaves  are  those  of  men :  the  leaves 
that  be,  them  the  wind  scatters  on  earth,  but  the  wood- 
land buds  and  puts  forth  more  again  when  the  season 
of  spring  comes  on ;  so  of  the  generations  of  men  one 
springs  up  and  another  passes  away : "  the  other,  per- 
haps the  most  remarkable  of  all,  the  words  put  in  the 
mouth  of  Paris,  as  if  to  show  that  it  is  not  always  to 
the  greatest  of  her  children  that  life  gives  her  largest 
wisdom :  "  Not  to  be  thrown  away  are  the  gifts  of  the 
Gods,  that  they  give  unbidden,  and  no  man  may  have 
them  of  his  own  choice."  ^ 

Texts  like  these  have  become  the  commonplaces  of 
thought,  the  stock-in-trade  of  secondary  poets;  like 
the  epithet  and  the  simile,  the  moral  sentence  convey- 
ing a  light  on  the  whole  of  life  can  be  degraded  until 
it  fails  to  convey  any  meaning,  or  to  be  a  mark  for  the 
ways  of  men.  As  with  those  ornaments  it  is  our 
business  to  see  them  with  our  own  eyes  and  feel  them 
with  our  own  senses,  so  it  is  our  business  with  these  to 
reconstitute  them  by  our  imagination  as  they  were  first 

1  Od.  i.  32-4  ;  II  xx.  127,  8  ;  Od.  vii.  197, 8,  vi.  182-5  ;  II.  xiii.  636-9. 

2  II.  vi.  145-9,  iii.  65,  6. 


74  HOMER 

imagined.  In  each  case  let  me  take  one  concrete 
instance  in  order  to  illustrate  and  emphasise  a  meaning 
which,  when  stated  in  general  terms,  may  itself  become 
a  mere  commonplace. 

"  A  single  epithet  in  Homer,"  says  Mr.  Butcher  in 
his  admirable  Harvard  lectures,  "  will  often  open  up  to 
us  the  very  heart  of  the  object."  I  take  the  first 
instance  that  comes  to  hand.  The  word  XevKcoXevog, 
"  white-armed,"  is  one  of  the  common  Homeric 
epithets  applied  to  womeru  Many  thousands  of 
readers  must  have  slipped  over  it  as  a  mere  indolent 
ornamental  epithet,  a  piece  of  prettiness  at  the  best,  if 
not  a  tag  to  fill  up  the  verse.  How  many  are  there 
who  have  paused  long  enough  over  it  to  consider  what 
it  means  ?  How  many,  even  if  they  realised  its  mean- 
ing, have  grasped  what  it  implies  ?  The  women  of 
Homer  are  not  the  white-handed  ladies  of  a  literary 
convention,  nor  the  creatures  of  a  luxurious  civilisation 
who  toil  not  neither  spin.  Had  Odysseus  compli- 
mented Nausicaa  as  white-handed  after  her  morning's 
work  by  the  river,  he  would  probably  have  moved  her 
to  some  expression  of  that  fresh  humour  with  which 
later  she  imitates  the  talk  of  her  vulgar  townspeople. 
But  let  us  take  a  passage  from  the  most  Homeric  of 
English  poets  and  flash  it  upon  this  single  Homeric 
word.  "  My  hands  are  burned,"  says  the  heroine  in 
Mother  and  Son, 

By  the  lovely  sun  of  the  acres  ; 

But  lo,  where  the  edge  of  the  gown 
(So  said  thy  father)  is  parting 

The  wrist  that  is  white  as  the  curd 
From  the  brown  of  the  hand  that  I  love, 

Bright  as  the  wing  of  a  bird. 


ILLUMINATING   ORNAMENT  75 

The  lines  are  little  more  than  an  expansion  of  the 
single  Homeric  epithet.  It  is  charged  with  the  whole 
aspect  of  a  simpler  and  stronger  life  than  our  own. 
Under  this  fresh  light  the  idle  epithet  has  become  a 
living  and  revealing  word. 

Take  again  one  of  the  developed  similes  in  the  Iliad, 
famous  indeed  but  strangely  misinterpreted  by  the 
commentators,  and  curiously  overshadowed  in  general 
appreciation  by  another.  That  other,  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  Trojan  camp  at  night  in  the  eighth  book, 
is  universally  known  ;  it  is  the  instance  which  has 
been  used,  ever  since  Wordsworth's  Supplementary 
Preface  to  the  Poems  of  1815,  for  the  purposes  of 
criticism  on  the  poetical  diction  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  as  represented  by  Pope's  translation ;  and  the 
passage  in  which  it  occurs  was  chosen  by  Tennyson 
for  an  experiment  in  translation  of  his  own.  It  may 
be  noticed  in  passing  that,  apart  from  the  larger  ques- 
tion of  style.  Pope  is  to  be  excused  if  he  failed  to  give 
a  satisfactory  rendering  of  a  picture  with  which,  in  the 
original,  something  seems  to  have  gone  wrong.  The 
passage  to  which  I  wish  to  draw  attention,  and  of 
which,  according  to  the  modern  critics,  that  in  Book 
VIII.  is  an  adaptation  by  a  later  poet,  is  in  Book  XVI. 
It  is  at  a  culminating  point  of  the  action.  Patroclus, 
in  the  armour  of  Achilles,  has  come  out  to  save  the  day 
where  the  battle  is  fiercest  round  the  ship  of  Protesilaus. 
His  first  spear-cast  strikes  down  a  Paeonian  captain. 
A  thrill  of  horror  runs  through  the  whole  Trojan 
ranks — klvrjOev  Se  (paXayyeg.  For  a  minute  they  think 
that  the  son  of  Peleus  himself  is    upon  them,  and 


76  HOMER 

remain,  as  it  were,  frozen  to  the  ground  where  they 
stand.  Then  they  break  in  rout,  and  the  roar  of 
battle  goes  up  again. 

That  minute's  awful  pause  is  illuminated  by  an 
image  which  is  unsurpassed  both  in  its  vivid  truth 
and  in  its  imaginative  fitness — 

0)9  ^'  OT  a(p'  v\l/t]\rj^  Kopv<ptjg  opeog  fieyaXoio 

KLvrjCTii  irvKivrjv  veCpeXrjv  crTepoirrjyepera  Zeu?, 

€K  T   ecpavev  iracraL  (TKOiricu  kol  Trpcoopeg  (XKpoi 

Koi  vdirai^  ovpavoOev  S'  ap   VTreppdyrj  aa-Trero?  alQrip, 

"  As  when  from  the  great  crest  of  a  high  hill  Zeus 
the  Lightning-gatherer  pierces  the  dense  cloud,  and  of 
a  sudden  all  the  peaks,  and  jutting  spurs  and  dells 
shine  out,  and  in  heaven  the  illimitable  sky  is  rent 
asunder ;  such  was  the  breathing  space."  ^  The  picture 
is  given  in  four  lines.  Let  us  again  see  how  a  modern 
writer,  getting  his  effect  not  by  one  broad  sweep  of  the 
brush  but  by  minute  accumulated  touches,  describes 
the  same  thing  happening. 

"  It  might  have  been  a  lantern  that  was  flashed 
across  the  hill.  Then  all  that  part  of  the  world  went 
suddenly  on  fire.  Everything  was  horribly  distinct  in 
that  white  light.  The  firs  of  Caddam  were  so  near 
that  it  seemed  to  have  arrested  them  in  a  silent  march 
upon  the  hill.  The  grass  would  not  hide  a  pebble. 
The  ground  was  scored  with  shadows  of  men  and 
things.  Twice  the  light  flickered  and  recovered  itself. 
A  red  serpent  shot  across  it,  and  then  again  black 
night  fell.     The  hill   had    been  illumined    thus    for 

1  n,  xvi.  297-300. 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  HOMER   77 

nearly  half  a  minute.  During  that  time  not  even  a 
dog  stirred." 

If  it  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  all  this  descrip- 
tion is  latent  in  the  Homeric  simile,  yet  in  the  light  of 
it  the  Homeric  simile  is  seen  to  mean  more,  to  have  a 
more  exact  relevance  and  a  greater  imaginative  value : 
above  all,  we  shall  see  that  the  brief  explanatory  note 
in  the  Scholia,  TOVTea-nv  aa-Tpairtj  eyeverOf  is  exactly 
correct,  and  shall  be  saved  from  the  stupidity  of  re- 
garding the  description  as  merely  that  of  "  a  gleaming 
crag  with  belts  of  pines  "  discovered  through  a  rift  in 
the  mist. 

Or  once  more,  let  us  apply  the  same  interpretative 
method  to  one  of  Homer's  great  ethical  lines.  I  take 
one  which  is  so  familiar  that  it  almost  ceases  to  stir  us 
unless  we  use  real  effort  to  re-create  the  imaginative 
impulse  which  produced  it :  the  famous  aiev  apia-reveiv 
KOI  v7reipo')(Op  e/uL/uLepai  aXXcov.  It  occurs  twice  in  the 
Iliad,  in  each  case  as  the  maxim  of  a  heroic  father : 
the  words  are  those  of  Hippolochus  to  Glaucus,  and 
those  of  Peleus  to  Achilles,  when  they  sent  their  sons 
forth  to  the  war,^  "  He  sent  me  to  Troy,"  says  Glaucus, 
"  and  charged  me  full  often  to  be  ever  a  valiant  man 
and  to  excel  others."  "  Aged  Peleus,"  says  Nestor  to 
Patroclus,  *'  charged  his  son  Achilles  to  be  ever  a  valiant 
man  and  to  excel  others ;  but  to  you  Menoetius  son  of 
Actor  gave  charge  thus  " — and  so  forth,  four  lines  of 
excellent  advice  which  I  need  not  quote. 

Here  the  best  help  is  in  Pope's  translation:  for 
Pope,  whatever  his  shortcomings,  is  always  responsive 

1  II.  vi.  208,  xi.  784. 


78  HOMER 

to  such  passages,  and  kindles  to  the  heroic  temper. 
His  two  renderings  are  curiously  different — 

By  his  decree  I  sought  the  Trojan  town  ; 
By  his  instructions  learn  to  win  renown  : 
To  stand  the  first  in  worth  as  in  command^ 
To  add  new  honours  to  my  native  land, 
Before  my  eyes  my  mighty  sires  to  place 
And  emulate  the  glories  of  our  race. 

That  is  one ;  now  hear  the  other — 

Your  ancient  fathers  generous  precepts  gave  : 
Peleus  said  only  this  :  My  son,  be  brave. 

Which  of  these  is  the  better  translation — the  four  and 
a  half  lines  or  the  two  words  ?  The  question  is  idle : 
for  both  are  perfect.  In  the  light  of  either,  still  more 
in  the  light  of  both,  the  line  of  Homer  becomes  alive. 
The  gorgeous  amplification  of  the  one  rendering,  the 
concentrated  brevity  of  the  other,  both  go  straight  to 
the  mark,  and  give  the  same  lifting  of  the  heart.  In 
them  the  Homeric  sentence  has  once  more  become 
reillumined  with  its  first  brightness,  recharged  with  its 
first  significance,  v 

It  is  a  part  of  the  power  of  great  poetry  to  find  a 
soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil  or  indifferent,  to  walk 
through  the  fire  unscathed  and  carry  from  it  light  in 
the  darkness  and  comfortable  heat  for  men.  The 
morals  of  Homer's  world  are  not  high-pitched,  nor 
are  his  characters  uniformly  admirable.  He  was  too 
great  an  artist  to  make  tlieiu  so,  or  to  make  us  wish 
he  had.  Hector  shows  more  than  once  something 
approaching  cowardice.  Odysseus  is  perfectly  un- 
scrupulous in  disregard  of  truth,  and  in  both  Iliad  and 


THE    HOMERIC   IDEAL  79 

Odyssey  his  character  has^a jmisjb§£,^d§Sy^M,Mi<fflelty. 
In  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey  Helen  speaks  of  herself  as 
a  shameless  worker  of  evil  quite  placidly  and  without 
the  least  heart-sorrow.  Yet  the  whole  effect  of  Homer 
is  to  exalt  courage,  purity,  straightforwardness,  m^cy. 

So  also  in  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey  the  sombre  view 
of  human  life,  though  most  prominently  felt  by 
Achilles  and  expressed  by  him  in  language  of  the 
darkest  magnificence,  is  never  far  off  anywhere.  And 
yet  the  elasticity  and  radiance  of  life  are  the  final 
and  lasting  impression  left  by  Homer ;  he  has  to  all 
later  ages  embodied  the  inventus  mundi ;  his  world 
is  one  where,  as  in  the  magic  island  of  Circe,  are 
the  dwellings  and  dancing-grounds  of  Dawn  of 
Morning,  and  the  uprisings  of  the  sun. 

It  is  through  this  quality,  the  incarnation  of  the 
whole  strength  and  splendour  of  life,  that  Homer  holds 
the  place  given  him  by  Lucretius  and  Dante  as 
sovereign  of  the  poets.  It  is  one  for  which  even 
praise  seems  inadequate  or  inappropriate.  Somehow 
or  other  we  praise  Homer,  it  has  been  said,  too  like 
barbarians.  The  mistake  perhaps  rather  lies  in  our 
praising  him  at  all ;  as  Swinburne  says  of  Shakespeare, 
"  His  praise  is  this,  that  he  is  praised  of  none."  One 
may  imagine  him  replying  to  his  panegyrists  as  to  his 
critics  in  the  noble  words  of  Odysseus  to  Diomede — 

IJ.riT    ap  jUL€  jULoX'  aivee,  /ul^tc  tl  i/eiKei ' 
aXX'  'loimev '  juLoXa  yap  vv^  averai,  eyyvOi  ^'  tjcog. 

"  Praise  me  not  much,  neither  blame  me,  but  let  us  go 
forward  ;  for  night  is  far  spent,  and  the  dawn  is  nigh."  ^ 

1  IL  X.  249-51. 


THE    LYRIC    POETS 


THE  AGE  OF  FREEDOM:  SAPPHO 

TcijULog  aViruos  kXvto^  opOpog  iyelprjariv  af]S6vag — "  Then 
sleepless  magnificent  dawn  awakes  the  nightingales :  " 
this  stray  line  from  one  of  the  nine  lyrists  of  the 
Greek  canon,  preserved  for  us  by  being  quoted  in  a 
treatise  on  grammar  written  in  the  reign  of  Marcus 
Aurelius/  might  well  be  placed  as  a  motto  over  the 
fragmentary  but  priceless  volume  of  the  Greek  lyric 
poets.  The  splendid  epic  sunset  is  followed  by  a 
profound  night  of  between  one  and  two  centuries. 
That  night  wore  on,  the  voice  of  the  epic  sounding 
fainter  and  fainter  across  it. 

Till  waned  the  moon  and  all  the  stars  grew  pale, 
And  from  the  east  faint  yellow  light  outshone 
O'er  the  Greek  sea,  so  many  years  agone. 

In  the  intervening  period  of  darkness,  hardly  recover- 
able even  in  the  main  outlines  of  its  history,  and 
without  any  authentic  record  of  its  literature,  the 
Hellenic  race  had  been  born.  Histories  of  Greece 
present  us  with  a  confused  record  of  migrations, 
conquests,  and  colonisations,  amid  which  the  mediaeval 
framework  of  life  pictured  in  the  Homeric  poems 
completely    disappeared.      With    the  memory  of  the 

1  Ibycus,  frag.  7. 


84  THE    LYRIC    POETS 

Homeric  life,  the  memory  even  of  the  Homeric  poetry 
became  confused  and  dispersed.  All  the  ancient  world 
was  broken  up.  The  beginnings  of  the  lyric,  so  far  as 
they  can  be  traced  by  recoverable  fragments,  do  not 
take  us  back  much  beyond  700  B.C.  At  that  time 
Hellenic  life  in  many  of  its  aspects,  and  Hellenic 
thought  in  some  of  its  distinctive  qualities,  were 
already  established.  Monarchy  had  been  abolished  at 
Athens  and  Corinth.  The  constitution  of  Lycurgus 
was  already  of  ancient  date  at  Sparta.  The  Greek 
colonies  beyond  the  seas  had  become  thriving  inde- 
pendent powers.  The  thalassocracy  of  Miletus,  a  move- 
ment which  if  developed  might  have  placed  the  centre 
of  Greek  life  on  the  eastern  coasts  of  the  Aegean  and 
turned  the  whole  course  of  human  history,  had  not 
yet  fallen  before  the  pressure  of  the  Lydian  empire. 
The  epoch  of  the  tyrants  was  approaching.  As  in  the 
Tudor  period  in  England,  these  hereditary  monarchies, 
while  they  reinstated  old  names  and  renewed  old 
forms,  were  based  on  a  completely  different  theory 
of  government  from  that  of  the  mediaeval  Homeric 
world,  and  were  the  first  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
democracy.  In  the  birth  of  Greek  poetry  and  its 
development  during  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries 
B.C.  may  be  traced  three  different  threads,  interwoven 
it  is  true  with  great  complexity,  yet  to  a  certain 
extent  detachable  from  one  another,  and  giving  a  clue 
to  the  progress  of  poetry  between  the ,  decay  of  the 
epic  and  the  concentration  of  intellectual  life  at 
Athens.  There  is  the  court  poet,  the  lineal  successor 
of  the  Homeric  minstrel,  living  now  no  longer  at  the 


THE   EXPANSION    OF   POETRY        85 

seat  of  a  patriarchal  or  feudal  government  amid  a 
life  wholly  based  on  ancestral  traditions,  but  in  the 
palace  of  one  or  other  of  the  new  monarchs,  and  adapt- 
ing his  poetry  accordingly  to  the  modern  movement. 
There  is  the  poet  who,  himself  a  member  of  the  aristo- 
cratic class  which  disputed  the  control  of  the  state 
with  the  joint  forces  of  monarch  and  people,  lives  in 
and  writes  for  that  circle.  Finally  there  is  the  poet 
who,  detached  alike  from  the  courts  of  kings  and  from 
the  more  exclusive  culture  of  an  aristocratic  class, 
writes  for  himself,  and  thus  for  the  whole  world.  The 
achievement  of  Hellas  in  these  ages  was  to  create  the 
state  on  one  hand,  to  create  the  individual  on  the 
other.  In  the  sphere  of  poetry,  by  an  analogous 
double  achievement,  the  Hellenic  genius  created  per- 
sonal and  national  poetry.  Both  took  shape  in  the 
forms  which  are  widely  classed  under  the  general 
name  of  lyrical.  As  including  the  iambic  and  elegiac 
as  well  as  the  melic  poets,  that  name  covers  what  is 
really  the  whole  field  of  Greek  poetry  other  than  epic 
and  dramatic — the  epic,  which  is  the  specific  product 
of  mediaeval  or  pre-Hellenic  Greece,  and  the  dramatic, 
which  is  the  specific  product  of  the  fully  organised 
city-state,  of  the  city  absorbing  individual  life,  and  of 
poetry  concentrated  to  a  civic  function. 

So  wide  a  field  has  no  obvious  or  definable  unity. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  term  lyric  poetry  was  un- 
known to  the  Greeks;  and  its  subdivisions,  iambic, 
elegiac,  and  melic,  are  based  on  an  arbitrary  test  of 
metrical  form  in  the  first  two,  and  on  a  connection 
almost  as  arbitrary  between  poetry  and  music  in  the 


86  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

third.  With  the  progress  and  differentiation  of  literary 
forms,  iambic  poetry  became  in  the  main  absorbed  into 
the  drama:  elegiac  poetry  more  and  more  tended, 
until  it  took  a  fresh  development  among  the  Alexan- 
drians, towards  the  specific  province  of  the  epigram. 
The  history  of  both  these  forms  is  very  varied  and 
fluctuating.  But  in  what  is  known  as  the  lyric  age, 
it  is  on  melic  poetry — what  may  be  called  the  lyric 
proper — that  we  may  best  concentrate  our  attention. 
To  avoid  the  unfamiliar  term  of  melic,  I  shall  use  the 
word  lyric  and  lyrist  henceforward  in  this  restricted 
sense. 

According  to  the  metricians,  Greek  lyric  poetry  in 
this  acceptation  of  the  term  has  two  notes  distinctive 
of  it  in  its  technical  or  formal  quality.  It  is  in  the 
first  place  strophic — a  TrolrjjULa  Kara  TrepioSov  in  the 
phrase  of  the  grammarians — that  is  to  say,  it  is 
written  in  stanzas,  and  not  in  continuous  lines  of  the 
same  metrical  structure.  These  stanzas  are  commonly 
in  their  simpler  forms,  as  they  are  likewise  in  English, 
of  four  lines  each ;  but,  also  as  in  English,  they  vary 
beyond  this  inferior  limit  up  to  almost  any  degree  of 
length  and  intricacy.  In  the  second  place  it  is  nor- 
mally, though  to  this  rule  there  are  exceptions, 
"  logaoedic  " — that  is  to  say,  it  is  written  not  in  con- 
tinuous feet  of  the  same  metrical  length,  but  in  some 
combination  of  dactylic  and  trochaic  rhythms,  in  a 
combination,  that  is,  of  common  and  triple  time.  Both 
of  these  may  seem  highly  technical  differentiae,  having 
little  to  do  with  the  quality  of  poetry  as  such.  Yet 
they  are  not  without  importance  as  effects,  and  in 


THE    ORIGINS   OF   THE   LYRIC        87 

turn  as  contributory  causes,  of  the  wholly  new  scope 
and  expansion  which  Greek  poetry  took  in  the  Ij^ic 
age.  They  mean  that  in  form  as  in  spirit  the  estab- 
lished mediaeval  practice  has  been  supplemented,  and 
even  for  a  time  superseded,  by  fresh  movements  of 
poetry  embodying  new  ideals  in  new  methods. 

The    earliest    departure,    according   to  such  slight 
records  as   are   attainable,  from  the   dominant  hexa- 
meter verse  of  the  epic  age  was  that  modification  of  it 
which  became  established  in  the  form  of  the  elegiac 
couplet.     This  form  of  poetry  arose  in  the  old  home 
of  the  epic,  and  remained  in  close  contact  with  the 
epic  traditions  in  language  and  structure.     The  name 
of  rhapsodist,  it  has  been  noted,  is  still  applied  to  the 
poets  who  practised  it.     It  was  a  subsidiary  growth  of 
the  old  art  of  the  epic  minstrel.     About  the   same 
time,  or  a  little  later,  came  the  invention  of  the  iambic, 
that  ''  restless  rhythm  "  as  a  historian  of  Greek  litera- 
ture well  describes  it,  in  which  "  the  battle  of  life 
and  the  turmoil  of  the  market-place  found  a  voice  " — 
tonte  der  Streit  des  Lehens  und  der  L'drm  des  Marktes. 
If  the  iambicist  Archilochus    be    held,  according    to 
the  settled  tradition  of  antiquity,  as  in  some  sense 
the    founder     of    lyric     poetry,    this    shows    or    at 
least  suggests  how  hard  was  the  crust  of  epic  tradi- 
tion that  had  to   be  broken.     Nothing  short  of  the 
voluble  undignified  iambic  metre  would  do  it.     Once 
the  fetters  of  the  old  tradition  were  broken,  the  lyric 
rapidly  found  its  proper  forms;  it  created  for  itself 
a  versification  more  melodious,  more  delicate,  more 
intricate  and  subtle  in  its  harmonies.    It  was  not  until 


88  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

long  after  that  the  iambic  was  trained  into  a  new  scope 
and  dignity  in  the  hands  of  the  Attic  tragedians ;  and 
even  in  them  it  retains  certain  marked  affinities  with 
prose. 

Both  iambic  and  elegiac  poetry  had  their  origin  in 
Ionia ;  both  seem  to  have  arisen  there  under  some 
foreign  and  Asiatic  influence,  and  both  became  fully 
developed  somewhat  later,  when  transplanted  to  the 
soil  of  Greece  Proper.  The  traditional  migration  of 
Tyrtaeus,  the  first  or  all  but  the  first  elegist,  to  Sparta 
from  Miletus,  and  of  Archilochus,  the  first  iambicist, 
to  the  Peloponnesus  from  Pares  or  Thasos,  may  be 
taken  as  a  symbol  of  a  general  movement  of  the 
new  forms  of  poetry  towards  the  centre  of  Hellenic 
life.  From  that  centre  they  spread  backward  again  all 
over  outer  Hellas.  What  took  place  was  the  passage 
of  a  great  wave  of  poetical  influence  from  Asia 
to  Europe  and  the  creation  under  that  influence  of 
Greek  poetry:  that  Greek  poetry  in  turn  expanding 
outwards  to  overspread  the  Greek  world. 

A  similar  movement  took  place,  with  equally  fertile 
results,  in  lyric  poetry  proper.  Alexandrian  scholars 
formed,  and  Roman  critics  accepted  from  them,  a  list 
of  nine  great  lyric  masters.  Their  work,  from  the 
earliest  poems  of  Alcman  to  the  latest  of  Bacchylides, 
extends  over  a  period  of  almost  exactly  two  centuries. 
Its  beginnings  are  in  the  era  of  the  earlier  Greek 
tyrannies  like  those  of  the  Cypselids  and  Orthagorids, 
of  the  Lydian  empire  of  the  Mermnadae,  and  of  the 
full  tide  of  Greek  colonisation  over  all  the  Mediter- 
ranean between  Cyprus  and  Sicily.     It  comes  to  an 


THE   LYRIC   CANON  89 

end  in  the  central  period  of  fully  developed  Greek  life 
between  the  Median  and  Peloponnesian  wars.  These 
centuries  were  a  period  of  brilliant  and  restless  life 
within  the  wide  bounds  of  that  whirling  nebula  of 
commonwealths  which,  kept  apart  politically  by  forces 
of  mutual  repulsion  too  powerful  to  be  overcome,  were 
united  by  a  common  genius  into  a  single  intellectual 
world.  Of  the  nine  poets,  Pindar  alone  belonged  by 
birth  to  Greece  Proper.  But  nearly  all  of  them, 
whatever  the  city  of  their  origin,  travelled  widely 
beyond  it  in  person  and  more  widely  still  through 
their  writings.  Alcman  of  Sardis,  the  earliest  of 
them  in  date,  passed  over  into  the  Peloponnesus,  and 
developed  a  highly  refined,  sensitive,  and  delicately 
personal  poetry  at  Sparta:  at  Sparta,  which  of  all 
places  in  the  world  was  then  the  centre  of  the  finest 
Hellenic  culture.  Sappho  of  Mitylene  spent  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  her  life  in  Sicily,  and  the  legend  of 
her  death  connects  her  with  Acarnania,  on  the  extreme 
verge  of  Hellenism.  The  court  of  Poly  crates  at  Samos 
drew  towards  it  poets  not  merely  from  the  neighbour- 
ing cities,  but  from  the  distant  West  like  Ibycus  of 
Rhegium.  As  brilliant  a  circle  were  attracted  to 
Athens  and  the  life  of  intellect  and  scholarship  which 
flourished  there  under  the  rule  of  Peisistratus.  The 
great  lyric  poets  of  the  later  sixth  century,  Anacreon, 
Simonides,  Pindar,  Bacchylides,  are  recorded  as  travel- 
ling all  over  the  Greek  world.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
lyric  period  there  is  a  gradual  concentration  towards 
Athens ;  and  it  was  here  that,  after  the  Persian  wars, 
the  new  poetic  art  of  the  drama  absorbed  or  merged 


90  THE   LYRIC    POETS 

into  itself   the  double  currents   of   iambic  and   lyric 
poetry. 

The  chance  of  history  has  preserved  for  us  only  in- 
considerable fragments  of  the  work  of  seven  out  of  the 
nine  great  lyrists.    The  other  two,  Pindar  and  Bacchy- 
lides,  belong  to  the  end  of  the  lyric  age.     The  fiery 
genius  of  the  one,  the  equable  grace  of  the  other,  are 
exercised  on  forms  and  subjects  which  are  well  estab- 
lished, and  have  even  begun  to  stiffen,  and  to  show 
the  first  signs  that  the  life  of  poetry  is  preparing  to 
pass  elsewhere.    Lyric  poetry  proper  after  this  became 
more  and    more  confined   to  the  dithyramb,  a  form 
which  lent  itself  with  fatal  facility  to  a  conventional 
and    quasi-scientific    treatment,  and   from  which  the 
inner  spirit  of  poetry  had  passed  away  long  before  its 
decadence  was  formally  recognised  and  registered  in 
the  work  of  the  great  innovator,  Timotheus  of  Miletus. 
It  is  among  the  earlier  generation  of  lyrists  that  the 
Greek  lyric  is  in  its  first  perfection,  in  the  full  charm 
and  freshness  of  its  youth :   '^^pva-oTreSiWos  ai/o)?,   "  the 
gold-shod   morning,"   eap   vjulvcov,    "  the   spring-tide   of 
song." ' 

In  this  group  of  earlier  lyrists  the  school  of  Lesbos 
takes  the  first  place.  It  includes  among  the  earlier 
lyrists  Terpander,  who  like  Alcman  passed  to  Sparta 
and  became  there  one  of  the  masters  in  the  grave  and 
delicate  Dorian  lyric ;  among  the  later,  Arion,  the 
inventor  or  organiser  of  the  dithyramb,  not  in  his 
native  country  but  at  Corinth ;  between  them  it  finds 

*  Sappho,  frag.  18:  Anon,  in  Anth.  Pal.  vii.  12,  probably  quoting 
from  Erinna. 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   LESBOS  91 

its  specific  native  expression  in  the  two  great  central 
names  of  Alcaeus  and  Sappho.  In  Alcman,  a  genera- 
tion earlier,  the  flexible  Ionian  temperament,  touched 
with  the  refined  and  even  then  somewhat  severe  spirit 
of  Sparta,  had  wrought  out  a  lyric  poetry  which  we 
may  judge  from  its  fragments  to  have  been  of  un- 
excelled beauty.  In  Tisias  of  Himera — the  first  of  a 
family  or  confraternity  of  poets  who  bore  the  literary 
surname  of  Stesichorus,  "  the  chorus-setter  " — a  mixed 
Doric  and  Chalcidian  stock  produced  forms  and 
methods  of  lyric  composition  which  give  him  a  place 
of  the  first  importance  in  the  historical  development 
of  Greek  poetry.  On  one  side  he  is  still  in  immediate 
contact  with  the  epic  tradition,  and  came  of  a  family 
which  claimed  some  sort  of  descent  from  Hesiod :  on 
the  other  hand  he  was,  as  the  inventor  of  the  fully 
articulated  choric  ode,  one  of  the  formative  influences 
in  the  development  of  the  drama;  and  he  was  also 
the  originator  of  the  pastoral,  that  specifically  Sicilian 
type  of  poetry  which,  three  hundred  years  later, 
developed  as  the  last  and  one  of  the  loveliest  products 
of  Greek  genius.  Between  these  two  schools  or  types, 
Alcman  and  Terpander  on  the  one  hand,  Stesichorus 
and  Arion  on  the  other,  the  Lesbian  poets  stand  some- 
what more  apart  from  the  general  stream  of  poetical 
tendency  and  from  mixed  influences  of  race  and 
surroundings.  They  have  no  certain  poetical  parent- 
age, and  little  or  no  clearly  visible  efl'ect  on  the  later 
development  of  their  art. 

Jlejooo^o?    CO?   OT    aoiSog  6   Aecr^fo?  oX\oSa7roia-iv — 
*'  pre-eminent,  as  the  Lesbian  singer  above  those  of 


92  THE    LYRIC   POETS 

other  lands  "  ;  that  superb  line  of  Sappho's  ^  makes  a 
claim  for  these  lyrists  which  our  best  critical  judg- 
ment, without  a  dissentient  voice,  willingly  concedes 
to  Sappho  herself.  The  sole  woman  of  any  age  or 
country  who  gained  and  still  holds  an  unchallenged 
place  in  the  first  rank  of  the  world's  poets,  she  is 
also  one  of  the  few  poets  of  whom  it  may  be  said  with 
confidence  that  they  hold  of  none  and  borrow  of  none, 
and  that  their  poetry  is,  in  some  unique  way,  an 
immediate  inspiration.  Alcaeus,  as  Horace  observes,^ 
attracts  a  wider  and  more  mixed  audience.  Even  in 
Lesbos  the  world  of  men  was  wider  and  more  various 
than  the  world  that  lay  open  to  women.  It  had  its 
thousandfold  interests  of  war,  travel,  adventure,  politics, 
society — even  eating  and  drinking,  for  of  these  last 
"  life  consists,"  and  they  occupy  a  large  place  in  Greek 
lyric  poetry.  But  of  the  two,  Sappho  is  the  finer  and 
more  wonderful  poet.  The  "  Dorique  delicacy "  of 
Alcman,  like  that  of  a  young  Milton ;  the  romantic  note 
of  Stesichorus,  who  reminds  one  again  and  again  of  a 
Greek  Keats ;  the  tense  thrill  and  burning  splendour 
of  Pindar  when  he  is  most  himself  and  most  beyond 
comparison ;  the  grave  tenderness  and  high  simplicity 
of  Simonides :  all  these  are  among  things  priceless ; 
but  beyond  them  all,  and  when  all  allowance  has  been 
made  for  the  atmosphere  of  legend  and  sentiment 
which  has  formed  itself  round  her,  Sappho  seems  to 
be,  without  effort  and  without  hesitation,  at  the 
central  heart  of  poetry.  Placed  beside  her  work  that 
of  the  others  seems  to  lose  its  lustre.     Where  simpler, 

1  Frag.  92.  2  Odes,  II.  xiii.  25-32. 


THE    TENTH    MUSE  93 

it  becomes  thin;  where  more  elaborate,  it  becomes 
heavy.  Siime  'purpuram,  qualis  ajpud  nos  est,  one  may 
imagine  her  saying  to  the  other  poets,  in  the  words 
of  the  Persian  king  to  the  Emperor  Aurehan;  and 
as  with  the  gift  of  Bahram,  so  with  the  poetry  of 
Sappho  the  historian  might  go  on  to  say :  ad  quod 
cum  iungerent  purpuras  suas,  cineris  specie  decolorari 
videbantur  ceterae  divini  comparatione  fulgoris.  Such 
is  the  feeling  expressed  in  splendid  but  hardly  ex- 
aggerated language  by  Swinburne,  in  that  early  poem 
where,  alone  among  the  moderns,  he  has  mastered 
and  all  but  reproduced  one  of  her  favourite  metres, 
the  Sapphic  stanza  which  she  invented  and  to  which 
she  gave  her  name — 

Ah  the  singing,  ah  the  delight,  the  passion  ! 
All  the  Loves  wept,  listening  ;  sick  with  anguish 
Stood  the  crowned  nine  Muses  about  Apollo  ; 
Fear  was  upon  them 

While  the  tenth  sang  wonderful  things  they  knew  not. 
Ah,  the  tenth,  the  Lesbian  !  the  nine  were  silent, 
None  endured  the  sound  of  her  song  for  weeping ; 
Laurel  by  laurel 

Faded  all  their  crowns  ;  but  about  her  forehead 
Shone  a  light  of  fire  as  a  crown  for  ever. 

Round  the  life  of  Sappho,  and  the  nine  books  of  her 
lyrics  of  which  so  lamentably  little  survives,  a  whole 
mythology,  not  of  the  most  attractive  nature,  grew  up 
in  later  Greece.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  this ; 
it  would  be  hardly  necessary  to  mention  it,  except 
that  a  word  of  warning  is  not  even  now  superfluous 
against  treating  it  seriously.  In  later  Greece,  and 
especially  at  Athens  with  its  irreverent  intellect,  its 


94  THE   LYRIC    POETS 

dislike  of  romance,  and  its  strong  views  with  regard 
to  the  proper  sphere  of  woman,  her  name  became 
a  target  for  audacious  and  often  indecent  witticisms. 
Her  relations  with  the  other  lyric  poets,  or  with  the 
persons,  whether  men  or  women,  named  in  her  poems, 
supplied  a  field  in  which  the  Middle  Comedy  loved  to 
expatiate.  Later  scholars,  in  whom  all  sense  of 
humour  was  lost,  went  to  these  wild  farces  as  sources 
of  actual  information.  Thus  Athenaeus  cites  a  comedy 
of  Diphilus,  one  of  six  or  eight  in  which  Sappho  had 
the  title-role,  where  Archilochus  and  Hipponax  are 
introduced  as  two  of  Sappho's  lovers.  "  I  rather  fancy 
he  was  joking" — ^yovjULai  iralXeiv — is  his  perplexed 
comment.  As  Archilochus  lived  a  century  before  her 
and  Hipponax  half  a  century  after  her,  this  conclusion 
does  not  appear  to  err  on  the  side  of  rashness.  To 
this  puzzle-headedness  was  added  the  prurience  which 
spread  like  a  plague  through  so  much  of  later  Greek 
letters,  and  which  Latin  writers,  for  whom  the  Greek 
of  the  decadence  was  the  literature  that  lay  next  them 
and  separated  them  from  the  Greek  classics,  practised 
as  a  deliberate  artifice.  To  an  age  of  narrow  pre- 
judices, as  to  an  age  of  vicious  morals,  a  personality 
like  that  of  Sappho  was  unintelligible.  The  early 
Ionian  civilisation — one  may  use  this  term  widely  to 
cover  the  cities  of  Aeolic  origin  and  speech  as  well  as 
those  of  Ionia  proper — seemed  to  them  something 
exotic  and  corrupt.  Lesbian  vice  became  a  proverb ; 
and  between  malice  and  ignorance,  the  name  of  Sappho 
got  that  ugly  smear  across  it  for  which  her  extant 
poetry  gives  no  warrant,  to  which  indeed  the  whole 


THE    LEGEND    OF   SAPPHO  95 

body  of  her  extant  poetry  is  the  contradiction.  In 
dealing  with  love  in  its  aspect  as  a  bodily  passion,  a 
poetess,  even  if  she  be  Sappho,  starts  at  some  dis- 
advantage. She  has  to  overcome  not  only  the  con- 
ventional reticence  expected  of  her  sex,  but  the 
associations  of  language  which  have  grown  up  in  the 
poetry  produced  by  men.  There  is  a  tendency  for  her 
language  to  swerve  into  the  customary  forms :  there  is 
a  very  marked  tendency  to  more  or  less  unconscious 
impersonation.  Hence  come  ambiguities  of  expression 
which  malice  or  prurience  can  distort. 

Enough  of  this  subject.  But  in  passing  from  it  we 
may  just  take  notice  of  the  famous  Latin  poem,  the 
Sappho  Phaoni  included  in  some  of  the  MSS.  of  Ovid's 
Heroides.  That  poem  has  done  more  than  any  other 
writing  to  give  currency  to  the  gossip  of  which  I  have 
spoken ;  at  the  same  time  it  contains  what  are  clearly 
renderings,  and  masterly  renderings,  of  lost  passages 
from  Sappho's  own  poetry.  The  authorship  of  the 
poem  has  been  very  much  disputed.  While  it  very 
possibly  contains  interpolations  by  some  other  hand, 
the  evidence  of  style  is  to  my  mind  conclusive  that 
the  greater  part  of  it  is  Ovid's  authentic  work,  and 
that  he  has  woven  into  it,  with  a  skill  and  lightness  of 
touch  all  his  own,  lines  from  Sappho  in  which  we  can 
almost  feel  the  original.  Instances  of  these  are  the 
Quern  supra  ramos  extendit  aquatica  lotus ;  or  the  lovely 
phrasing  and  rhythm  of  the  Somnia  formoso  candidiora 
die ;  or  once  more,  the  Goncinit  Ismarium  Daulias  ales 
Ityn,  ales  Ityn,  with  that  reduplication  of  phrase  which 
was  a  distinctive  note  in  Sappho's  style.     These  lines, 


96  THE    LYRIC   POETS 

while  unmistakeably  Ovidian,  have  something  in  them 
that  is  not  Ovid;  and  that  something  is  an  echo  of 
Sappho. 

Of  the  actual  Sappho  what  we  know  amounts  to 
little  or  nothing.  That  she  belonged  by  birth  to  the 
Lesbian  aristocracy,  and  was  born  at  Mitylene  or 
Eresus  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  B.C. ; 
that  she  was  the  centre  of  a  society  of  highly  culti- 
vated women  who  practised  the  arts  of  music  and 
poetry  in  the  island ;  that  she  was  married  and  had 
one  or  more  children;  that  in  the  course  of  some 
political  revolution  she  was  driven  into  exile  with 
her  kinsfolk  and  spent  some  years  in  Sicily,  but 
returned  later  and  died  at  home :  these  facts  may  be 
taken  as  fairly  certain.  The  adventures  of  her  brother 
Charaxus  in  Egypt  do  not  belong  to  her  own  life. 
Any  other  details  either  are  purely  mythical  or  are 
arbitrary  inferences  from  fragments  of  her  poetry 
assumed  without  any  reason  to  be  autobiographic. 
Even  the  name  of  Sappho,  "  lapis-lazuli,"  though 
like  Electra,  "  amber,"  or  such  more  modern  names 
as  Margaret  or  Esmeralda,  it  may  have  been  one 
of  the  many  fanciful  names  given  to  girls  in  actual 
usage,  is  not  improbably  a  self-assumed  literary  title, 
such  as  were  habitual  among  Arab  and  Persian  poets, 
and  the  tradition  of  which  in  Provence  and  nearer 
at  hand  in  Wales  continues  into  our  own  day. 

In  Sappho,  as  in  the  whole  school  of  poets  to  which 
she  belonged,  the  epic  conception  of  poetry  has  com- 
pletely disappeared.  The  hexameter  is  still  used  as 
one    among  other   forms    of   verse;    but    except    for 


THE   NEW    POETRY  97 

this,  the  Homeric  poems  might  never  have  existed. 
They  were  in  that  strange  ecHpse  from  which  they 
reappeared  a  generation  or  two  later.  Among  the 
fragments  of  Alcman  are  some  which  in  substance 
approach  so  closely  to  passages  in  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  that  they  might  almost  seem  to  be  a  de- 
liberate challenge  to  the  old  by  the  new  poetry. 
Such,  for  instance,  is  the  passage  beginning  evSova-iv 
S'  opecov  Kopv(paL — "  The  crests  and  clefts  of  the  hills 
are  asleep,  and  the  headlands  and  ravines,  and  foliage 
and  all  moving  things  that  the  dark  earth  nourishes, 
wild  hill-haunting  beasts  and  the  race  of  bees  and 
the  creatures  in  the  depths  of  the  dark-gleaming 
ocean,  and  asleep  are  the  tribes  of  long-winged 
birds."  ^  The  material  is  that  of  a  richly  elaborated 
epic  simile;  the  tone  and  accent,  sharp,  direct,  per- 
sonal, are  those  of  a  poetry  that  is  finding  itself 
afresh.  Poetry  has  ceased  to  be  "  rhapsodia,"  the 
song-stringing  and  embroidery  of  the  tale-teller.  It 
has  become  the  "  od^  "  itself,  the  immediate  utterance 
of  personal  emotion  under  the  impact  of  whatever 
force  at  the  moment  is  acting  most  directly  on  the 
poet. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  new  poetry  reached  its  full 
height  in  a  civilisation  like  that  of  Lesbos.  It  was 
a  society  of  high  culture,  of  refined  taste,  of  that 
ease  of  intercourse  and  freedom  of  manners  which 
within  its  own  narrow  circle  is  the  privilege  and 
the  grace  of  an  aristocracy.  Art  could  become  unre- 
strainedly   personal:    for    the    artist   wrote    for  him- 

^  Alcman,  frag.  60. 

G 


98  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

self  and  his  own  circle.  Where  an  aristocracy 
make  their  own  poetry,  instead  of  having  it  made 
for  them  by  professional  poets,  the  Homeric  min- 
strels or  mediaeval  jongleurs,  they  have  no  tempta- 
tion to  write  except  about  what  really  interests 
them.  The  themes  of  the  epic  cycle,  the  /cXea 
avSpcov,  were  what  was  conventionally  supposed  to 
interest  them ;  the  professional  minstrel,  bound 
alike  by  his  social  position  and  by  the  inherited 
tradition  of  his  craft,  kept  within  this  limit,  or  did 
not  venture  far  beyond  it.  That  kind  of  poetry 
was  outworn.  In  the  personal  note  of  the  lyric, 
poetry  found  a  new  life.  Hence  the  lyric,  until  in  its 
turn  it  becomes  patterned  and  conventional,  has  no 
defined  scope  of  matter  or  treatment.  Its  free  drift 
halts  not  particularly.  Love  or  adventure  or  hunger, 
the  beauty  of  nature,  political  antagonisms,  whatever 
the  lyric  poet  feels  acutely,  kindle  in  him  and  issue 
in  a  lyric  note.  The  lyric  follows  instinct;  and  in 
the  immense  range  and  difference  of  instinct  lies 
the  range  of  lyric  poetry,  and  the  difference — the 
greatest  of  all  differences  in  poetry — between  the 
good  lyric  and  the  bad. 

There  is  another  difference  almost  as  great:  that 
between  the  true  lyric  and  the  false.  This  does 
not  lie  in  a  difference  of  emotional  instinct,  but  in 
the  difference  between  a  real  emotion  and  one  which 
is  secondary,  induced,  or  simulated.  As  soon  as  the 
lyric  has  become  a  recognised  literary  form  this 
danger  sets  in.  First  there  is  the  secondary  lyric, 
which  rises  out   of  a  real  emotion,  but  an  emotion 


THE    RANGE   OF   THE   LYRIC  99 

which,  though  real  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  not  powerful 
or  keen  enough  to  compel  lyrical  expression,  but 
only  to  suggest  it  and  to  make  an  effort  towards 
it.  The  result  is  not  a  pure  lyric:  it  is  helped  out 
or  patched  up  by  the  use  of  lyrical  forms  already  in 
existence.  Where  there  is  a  sound  instinct,  lyric 
poetry  thus  produced  may  be  very  good  indeed,  but 
it  can  never  be  the  best ;  and  between  the  good 
and  the  best  in  this  as  in  all  art  the  difference 
is  infinite.  Next,  there  is  the  lyric  in  which  the 
emotion  is  second-hand,  the  emotion  of  literature 
as  it  may  be  called  rather  than  the  emotion  of  life. 
This  type  of  poetry,  the  lyric  of  induced  or  deriva- 
tive emotion,  is  familiar  in  all  periods  of  literary 
culture.  Lastly,  there  is  the  false  lyric,  not  born 
of  emotion  at  all,  but  the  dexterous  machine-made 
product  of  simulated  emotion.  It  is  not  always 
possible  to  assign  a  particular  poem  to  one  of  these 
kinds.  Art  is  not  so  simple  a  thing  as  that;  they 
merge  into  one  another,  even  in  the  work  of  the 
same  writer,  even  within  the  limits  of  the  same 
poem.  It  is  an  easy  thing  to  see  that  some  poetry 
is  essentially  false  or  bad:  it  is  no  very  difficult 
matter  to  see  that  some  other  poetry  is  essentially 
true  or  essentially  good.  But  of  most  poetry,  as 
of  most  art  generally,  neither  the  one  thing  nor  the 
other  can  be  said  without  qualification.  Between 
the  two  extremes,  we  are  always  dealing  with  the 
product  of  an  instinct  more  or  less  sound  towards 
the  method  of  expressing  an  emotion  more  or  less 
direct  and  vital ;  and  not  only  towards  the  method. 


100  THE   LYRIC    POETS 

but  towards  the  limit  of  expression,  and  towards 
the  hold  on  what  is  central  in  the  complex  tissue 
of  emotion. 

The  fragments  of  Sappho  leave  us  in  no  doubt 
as  to  her  rank  among-^  lyric  poets.  Like  the  lyrical 
work  of  Catullus  and  Shelley,  they  are  beyond  criti- 
cism. A  keenness  of  emotion  unsurpassed  by  any 
poet  takes  form  in  them  under  the  guidance  of  an 
instinct  which  seems  never  to  fail.  All  praise  of  her 
poetry  tends  to  become  ecstatic  and  hyperbolical ; 
but  these  are  just  the  epithets  that  can  never  be 
applied  to  her  poetry  itself.  Most  attempts  that  have 
been  made  to  reproduce  it  or  to  communicate  its  quality 
force  the  note:  her  own  note  is  never  forced.  The 
simplest  things  that  have  been  said  about  her  are 
the  truest.  After  all  the  pomp  of  words  has  been 
exhausted,  we  have  to  fall  back,  in  one  form  or 
another,  on  the  naive  but  curiously  true  phrase  used 
of  her  by  Strabo,  Oavfxaa-Tov  tl  xP^1^^>  "  ^  marvellous 
creature." 

Me/uLiyjUiiva  irvpi  (pOeyyerat,  "  her  utterance  is  mingled 
with  fire,"  an  ancient  author  says  of  Sappho,  in  one 
of  those  incidental  remarks  which  often  hit  nearer 
the  mark  than  formal  criticism ;  and  it  is  curious  to 
observe  how  constantly  the  metaphor  of  fire,  in  one 
form  or  another,  recurs  in  all  her  eulogists.  Yet  it 
is  inadequate  and  even  misleading  in  what  it  suggests. 
In  its  ordinary  acceptation  it  involves  a  misappre- 
hension of  Sappho's  central  poetical  quality.  Nothing 
is  more  remarkable  in  her  work  than  a  quality  which 
the  epithet  "  fiery  "  in  its  customary  use  certainly  does 


THE   SAPPHIC   LUSTRE  101 

not  imply — a  quality  of  straightforward,  lucid,  un- 
adorned expression.  Her  fire  is  not  a  raging  element ; 
it  is  a  steady  lustre  which  does  not  scorch  or  dazzle, 
the  brilliance  of  which  is  only  realised  when,  turning 
our  eyes  away  from  it  to  other  poetry,  we  find  that 
other  poetry  dim  by  comparison.  Her  fire  is  cool,  like 
that  of  a  gem.  While  it  is  true  that,  in  the  phrase 
I  have  already  quoted,  the  purple  of  other  poets 
seems  to  turn  ashen- coloured  when  laid  beside  hers, 
there  is  no  poet  from  whom  the  purple  patch  is 
more  conspicuously  absent.  Only  in  the  very  greatest 
poets,  and  in  these  when  they  are  at  their  best,  do 
we  find  this  inexplicable  and  overwhelming  sim- 
plicity, the  outcome  of  faultless  instinct  acting  on 
elemental  emotion.  It  is  the  ultimate  magic  of  art. 
We  read  a  few  simple  words  simply  put  together ; 
we  admire  them  and  pass  on;  and  then  we  find 
that  there  is  some  witchery  in  them  that  makes 
us  go  back,  and  again  back,  and  yet  again  back, 
to  make  sure  that  we  have  not  missed  something, 
to  try  to  find  what  it  is  in  them  that  moves  us  so. 
We  dilute  and  dilate  them  (the  phrase  is  that  of 
Swinburne  in  speaking  of  his  own  attempts  to 
render  the  fragments  of  Sappho  into  English);  we 
lavish  our  utmost  resources  on  trying  to  express 
some  mere  fraction  of  the  beauty  we  find  in  them; 
and  in  the  end  we  find  that  we  have  merely  blurred 
and  confused  what  we  have  been  trying  to  elucidate, 
that  the  magic  and  mystery  still  seem,  as  they 
seemed  at  first,  just  beyond  our  reach. 

This    elusive    magic,  while    it    is    a    quality  of  all 


102  THE   LYRIC    POETS 

Sappho's  poetry,  is  found  in  its  most  obvious  form 
where  the  passion  of  love  is  the  subject  of  the  poetry. 
It  is  this  by  which,  to  the  ancient  as  well  as  the 
modern  world,  she  has  been  chiefly  known.  The 
accident  through  which  the  only  two  fragments  of  her 
poetry  that  reach  beyond  half-a-dozen  lines  in  length 
— the  hymn  to  Aphrodite  and  the  so-called  ode  to 
Anactoria — are  concerned  directly  with  this  passion, 
has  tended  to  confirm  the  current  view.  But  the 
fragments  show  clearly  that  the  range  of  her  lyre  was 
much  wider;  and  whatever  the  subject,  all  bear  the 
same  translucent  quality,  comparable  to  that  of  water 
and  air  as  much  as  that  of  fire.  "  Now  I  will  sing  to 
my  fellow-women  delightful  things,"  so  one  of  the 
fragments  runs ;  of  the  delightful  things  love  was  the 
first,  but  there  were  many  others;  and  the  Muses 
"  who  made  me  precious,  giving  me  their  own  crafts," 
did  not  narrow  their  gift  to  the  art  of  love.^  One 
passage,  the  text  of  which  is  unfortunately  ruinous, 
speaks  of  "  my  joy  in  the  light  of  the  sun  holding 
within  it  all  things  radiant  and  fair."  ^  One  is  a 
speech  of  delicate  self-abasement,  spoken  with  the 
effect  of  a  catch  in  the  voice  and  tears  behind  the 
eyes :  ''  Surely  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  bear  malice 
in  their  temper,  but  my  heart  is  innocent."  ^  One  is 
a  keen,  swift  flicker  of  woman's  jealousy :  "  What 
country  girl  is  this  that  bewitches  your  sense,  one 
that  does  not  know  how  to  draw  her  skirts  about  her 
ankles  ? "  Another  is  a  wail  against  ingratitude : 
"  Those  harm  me  most  by  whom  I  have  done  well."  ^ 

1  Fragg.  10,  11.    -  Frag.  79.    ^  prag.  72.   «  Fragg.  70, 12. 


THINGS    RADIANT    AND    FAIR       103 

Of  another  we  only  know  the  substance  as  cited  by 
Aristotle ;  ^  but  even  so  we  may  gather  that  it  ex- 
pressed a  profound  reflection  on  human  life  in  language 
of  grave  clear  beauty  :  "  Or  as  Sappho  said,  that  death 
is  evil ;  for  the  Gods  have  so  judged ;  else  they  would 
have  died." 

Many  deal  with  the  loveliness  of  nature,  as  seen 
in  "  an  isle  under  Ionian  skies  "  where,  as  Herodotus 
says,  "  the  climate  and  seasons  are  the  most  beautiful 
of  any  cities  in  the  world  we  know."  These  pictures 
are  incomparably  vivid :  the  orchard  in  summer  where 
"  on  both  sides  cool  water  tinkles  through  apple- 
boughs,  and  slumber  floats  down  from  rustling  leaves ; " 
the  full  moon  shining,  and  the  stars  standing  fixed 
as  round  an  altar  ;  a  cloud  of  sparrows  descending 
through  the  air  in  a  whirl  of  wings ;  storm  sweeping 
down  the  hill  upon  a  roaring  oakwood ;  ^  or  those 
exquisite  lines,  the  best  known  I  suppose  of  all  her 
work,  about  the  apple  that  reddens  on  a  top  branch, 
atop  of  the  topmost,  and  the  apple-gatherers  forgot  it, 
no,  did  not  forget  it,  but  could  not  reach  it — 

oiov  TO  yXuKvjULoXop  epevOerai  aKpo)  ctt'  varScp, 
(XKpov  ctt'  CLKpOTCLTO),  \e\dOovTO  Se  jULoXoSpoTTije^f 
ou  juav  eKXeXaOovT   aXX'  ovk  eSvvavT    eirLKearOai. 

This  last  passage  is  an  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
Sappho's  poetry  has  been  sophisticated  by  modern 
sentiment,  just  as  in  later  Greece  it  was  defaced  by 
Athenian  vulgarity.  One  hardly  knows  whether  to 
be  more  grateful  to  Rossetti  for  his  beautiful  transla- 

1  Rhetoric,  ii.  23.  2  Fragg.  4,  53,  1,  42. 


104  THE    LYRIC    POETS 

tion  of  these  lines,  or  more  annoyed  with  him  for 
linking  with  them,  and  fixing  in  them  almost  irre- 
vocably, a  sentiment  which  does  not  belong  to  them, 
nor  to  the  almost  equally  beautiful  passage  which 
they  suggested  to  Catullus.  It  is  one  of  the  many 
instances  which  go  to  prove  that  poetry  is  untrans- 
lateable,  because  what  the  translator  reproduces  is  not 
the  original  itself,  but  the  original  as  limited  by,  or 
extended  over,  the  emotional  effect  produced  by  it  on 
his  own  mind. 

Now  with  the  Greek  lyrists,  and  with  Sappho  pre- 
eminently, this  emotional  effect  is  so  powerful  that  in 
translating  it,  as  in  criticising  it,  one  almost  inevitably 
not  only  dilates  and  dilutes  but  distorts  it.  Listen 
to  the  gorgeous  rhetoric  of  Swinburne's  Anactoria — 

Yea,  thou  shalt  be  forgotten  like  spilt  wine 
Except  these  kisses  of  my  lips  on  thine 
Brand  them  with  immortality  ;  but  me — 
Men  shall  not  see  bright  fire  nor  hear  the  sea 
Nor  mix  their  hearts  with  music,  nor  behold 
Cast  forth  of  heaven  with  feet  of  awful  gold 
And  plumeless  wings  that  make  the  bright  air  blind 
Lightning,  with  thunder  for  a  hound  behind 
Hunting  through  fields  unfurrowed  and  unsown — 
But  in  the  light  and  laughter,  in  the  moan 
And  music,  and  in  grasp  of  lip  and  hand 
And  shudder  of  water  that  makes  felt  on  land 
The  immeasurable  tremor  of  all  the  sea, 
Memories  shall  mix  and  metaphors  of  me. 

The  secondary  emotion  in  these  lines  is  perfectly 
genuine ;  but  it  is  secondary.  The  instinct  is  followed  ; 
but  the  instinct  is  not  perfectly  sound.  MvaaeaQal 
Tiva  (j)afxi  KOI  varrepov  a/jLixetav  are  the  words  of  Sappho 


MUSIC   OF   THE   SPHERES  105 

herself :  "  I  say  that  one  shall  remember  me  even  after- 
ward." ^     That  one  low,  pellucid  phrase  is  all. 

Or  take  Swinburne  again — for  when  he  wrote  his 
Anactoria  he  was  little  more  than  a  boy — coming 
with  trained  power  of  expression  and  matured  judg- 
ment to  Sappho  once  more,  coming  as  close  to  her 
as  he  can — 

/  loved  thee — hark,  one  tenderer  note  than  all — 
Atthis,  of  old  time  once — one  low  long  fall 
Sighing — one  long  low  lovely  loveless  call 
Dying — one  pause  in  song  so  flamelike  fast — 
Atthis,  long  since  in  old  time  overpast — 
One  soft  first  pause  and  last. 

The  emotion  is  not  perhaps  so  real,  but  the  in- 
stinct for  expression  is  much  truer.  Yet  how  far 
and  far  away  still  from  the  Greek,  how  indistinct 
by  comparison  !  "'Jipdjuiav  /mep  eyw  a-eOev,  "ArOi,  irdXai 
TTora,  "  I  loved  you  once,  Atthis  "  ^ — just  one  sliding 
sigh  and  whisper  of  sound.  Only  one  English  poet 
has  known  the  secret  of  this  melody. 

— But  what  music  ? 
— My  lord,  I  hear  none. 

—None  ? 
The  music  of  the  spheres. 

That  might  be  said,  I  think,  about  Sappho :  and  it  is 
said  as  Sappho  might  have  said  it. 

To  antiquity  Sappho  was  "  the  poetess "  as  Homer 
was  "  the  poet."  She  still  remains  so.  Many  women 
have  written  poetry,  and  some  have  written  poetry  of 
high  merit  and  extreme  beauty.  But  no  other  woman 
can  claim  an  assured  place  in  the  first  rank  of  poets. 

1  Frag.  32.  2  prag.  33. 


106  THE   LYEIC   POETS 

Among  the  Greek  lyrists  are  the  names  of  some  half- 
dozen  women  who  came  in  the  catalogue  of  the  lyric 
poets,  howbeit  they  attained  not  unto  the  Nine : 
Corinna  of  Tanagra,  the  rival  of  Pindar  and  one  of 
his  most  acute  critics ;  Murtis  of  Anthedon  and 
Telesilla  of  Argos ;  Erinna,  that  fascinating  and  elusive 
figure  who  somewhere  and  at  some  time — as  to  her 
country  and  her  date  all  is  uncertainty — died  at  nine- 
teen, an  inheritress  of  unfulfilled  renown.  Of  these 
as  of  their  successors  in  other  ages  and  countries  no 
one  has  stood  by  the  side  of  the  great  Lesbian — 

ovS^  'lav  SoKLjiioijULi  TrpocrlSoKrap  (pdog  aXlco 
e(T(T€a-6ai  (Tocblav  irapOevov  eig  ovSeva  iroo  yjiovov 
TOiavTav. 

"  Into  all  time  I  think  no  maiden  that  looks  on  the 
light  of  the  sun  shall  be  such  in  wisdom."  ^ 

It  is  not,  to  be  sure,  of  herself  that  Sappho  says  this ; 
though  when  every  fragment  in  which  a  pronoun  of 
the  first  person  occurs  is  tortured  into  a  piece  of  auto- 
biography, this  one  might  be  thrown  in  with  as  much 
reason  as  others.  For  the  quality  of  a-ocpla,  "  wisdom  " — 
something  that  includes  the  more  precise  notions  of 
culture,  insight,  and  balance — is  as  characteristic  of 
this  marvellous  creature  as  her  flame-like  passion  and 
her  faultless  language.  It  was  by  this  gift  among  the 
rest  that  the  Muses  made  her  precious.  One  famous 
passage  is  a  condemnation  to  oblivion  of  some  one — 
"an  uneducated  woman,"  says  the  collector  who  has 
preserved  the  lines — for  lack  of  the  wisdom  that  makes 

1  Frag.  69. 


ROSES    OF   PIERIA  107 

remembrance  outlive  death.  ^'Sometime  thou  shalt 
lie  dead,  and  no  memory  of  thee  shall  be  either  then 
or  afterward,  for  thou  hast  no  part  in  roses  from  Pieria ; 
but  even  in  the  chambers  of  Death  thou  shalt  pass 
unknown  flitting  forth  among  the  dim  ghosts."  That 
is  the  bare  colourless  English  of  her  own  gorgeously 
modulated  choriambics — 

KarOdvoicra  Se  Kelareai  Trora,  kcov  /uLvajULoa-vpa  creOev 
ecrareT    ovre  tot   ovt^  ua-TCpov,  ov  yap  ireSe-^eig  /SpoScou 
Twv  €K  Tltepia^,  aXX'  acpdvtjg  kvjv  'A'lSa  So/uloi? 
(pOiTCLoreig  Tre^'  djULavpcov  vckvcov  eKireTroTajuieva} 

In  these  lines  we  may  see  clearly  the  high  intellec- 
tual passion  which  is  as  remarkable  in  Sappho's  work 
as  the  more  sensuous  passion  through  which  she  has 
her  unique  fame.  The  Love  whom  she  saw,  cXOovt  e^ 
opavcD  TTopcpvpiav  irepdejj.evov  ^Xa/xui/,  "  descending  from 
heaven  clad  in  purple  vesture,"  ^  is  akin  to  the  intellec- 
tual and  spiritual  love  of  Plato  and  of  Dante. 

Among  the  most  beautiful  of  Provencal  poems  is  an 
alba  by  a  poetess  of  unknown  name  which  might  have 
been  written  by  one  of  the  scholars  of  Sappho.  It  is 
best  known  by  its  lovely  and  haunting  refrain,  the 

Oy  dieus  !  oy  dieus  !  de  1'  alba  tan  tost  ve  ! 

which  has  something  of  the  simplicity  and  poignancy 
of  a  line  of  Sappho's  own.  But  the  whole  piece,  though 
in  a  lower  key  and  with  far  less  accomplished  workman- 
ship, recalls  that  fresh  early  lyric  impulse  of  the  Aeolian 
poets.     It  has  not  the  splendour  and  inevitableness  of 

1  Frag.  68.  2  prag.  64. 


108  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

its  Greek  prototype,  but  it  has  a  similar  delicacy  and 
sweetness,  "  la  doss'  aura  qu'  es  venguda  de  lay." 

En  uii  vergier  sotz  fuelha  d'  albespi 
Tenc  la  dompna  son  amic  costa  si. 

Plagues  a  dieu  ja  la  nueitz  non  falhis 
Ni  '1  mieus  amicx  lone  de  mi  no  s  partis. 

Bels  dous  amicx,  fassam  un  joe  novel 
Ins  el  jardi  on  ehanton  li  auzel. 

La  dompna  es  agradans  e  plazens ; 
Per  sa  beautat  la  garden  mantas  gens. 

"  In  an  orchard,  under  the  hawthorn  leaf,  the  lady 
holds  her  lover  close  to  her.  Might  it  please  God  the 
night  would  never  wane,  nor  my  love  separate  far 
from  me.  Fair  sweet  love,  let  us  renew  delight,  in  the 
garden  where  the  birds  sing.  The  lady  is  gracious 
and  pleasant ;  many  people  regard  her  for  her  beauty. 
Ah,  God  !  ah,  God !  the  dawn  fleets  so  soon  ! " 

The  analogies  between  the  two  civilisations  and  the 
two  poetries  which  they  produced  as  their  flower  are 
more  than  superficial  and  are  in  some  ways  wonderfully 
close.  In  both  we  have  a  cultured  and  very  likely  a 
dissolute  governing  class ;  a  freedom  allowed  to  women 
in  life  and  speech  which  scandalised  the  rest  of  the 
world ;  poetry  and  music  seriously  studied  by  organised 
schools  or  guilds.  The  hetairiai  of  Lesbos,  associations 
of  women  for  the  cultivation  of  poetry  and  music,  have 
their  nearest  parallel  in  those  Courts  of  Love  which 
existed  in  Languedoc  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fourteenth 
century.  We  have  lists  of  a  number  of  these:  the 
beautiful  names,  Elys,  Beatrix,  H^leine,  Ermengarde, 
Azalais,  are  like  those  of  Sappho's  associates,  Atthis 


LESBOS   AND    PROVENCE  109 

and  Andromeda,  Cle'is  and  Anactoria  and  Gyrinno. 
Among  them  one,  Estephanette  de  Gantelmes,  is 
named  as  having  had  a  prominent  place,  and  a  reputa- 
tion in  poetry  something  like  Sappho's.  "  II  est  vray," 
says  Jean  de  Nostredame,  quoting  as  his  authority 
some  one  called  the  Monk  of  the  Islands  of  Gold,  "  que 
Phanette  ou  Estephanette,  comme  tres  excellente  en  la 
po^sie,  avoit  una  fureur,  ou  inspiration  divine,  laquelle 
estoit  estim^e  un  vray  don  de  Dieu."  ^ 

It  may  not -be  irrelevant  to  quote  what  Raynouard 
says,  in  his  classical  work  on  the  Troubadour  literature, 
as  to  the  scope  and  influence  of  the  lyric  poetry  of 
Provence,  for  much  of  it  is  strikingly  applicable  to 
the  earlier  Ijrric  of  Hellas.  After  tracing  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Romance  language,  the  kolpyj  or  common 
literary  dialect  of  the  western  Mediterranean :  "  sub- 
jected," as  he  says,  "to  new  combinations  of  poetry 
and  versification,  it  was  devoted  by  the  Troubadours 
to  expressing  the  delicacy  and  liveliness  of  love,  the 
uncompromising  outspokenness  (la  severe  franchise)  of 
their  moral  and  political  opinions,  their  enthusiasm 
for  noble  deeds  and  for  the  illustrious  persons  who 
wrought  them,  their  just  and  bold  indignation  against 
the  errors  and  faults  of  their  contemporaries ;  and  then 
a  new  literature  began." 

"When  we  have  studied"  Raynouard  adds,  "and 
appreciated  the  substance  and  form   of  these    com- 

^  Vies  des  plus  ceUhres  et  anciens  poHes  provengauXf  1575:  cited  by 
Raynouard,  Choix  des  Poesies  des  Troubadours,  vol.  ii.  p.  xciv.  foil. 
According  to  Nostredame,  this  Phanette  was  the  aunt  of  the  Laurette 
de  Sade  whom  he  identifies  with  Petrarch's  Laura.  But  even  Sade 
{Memoires  pour  la  vie  de  Petrarque)  had  to  admit  reluctantly  that  Nostre- 
dame was  an  "  auteur  trop  fabuleux." 


110  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

positions,  we  must  allow  to  these  poets  the  talent  and 
the  glory  of  having  created  an  independent  kind  of 
poetry,  which  has  become  for  part  of  Europe  the 
characteristic  and  fertile  type  of  the  beauties  of  feeling, 
imagery  and  expression." 

But  Provence,  while  it  produced  much  lyric  poetry 
of  great  delicacy  and  charm,  does  not  seem  ever  to 
have  produced  a  great  lyric  poet:  and  in  the  lyric 
even  more  than  in  other  forms  of  poetry,  the  difference 
is  vital  between  what  is  first-rate  and  what  falls  short 
of  being  first-rate.  Its  perfection  depends  on  the 
finest  balance  between  qualities  which  are  always 
tending  to  pull  against  one  another :  finish  of  style  and 
direct  expression  of  feeling.  In  Sappho  we  have  the 
finished  style,  the  yXacpvpo^  xapaKrrip  of  the  Greek 
critics,  to  a  degree  in  which  they  held  her  to  excel  all 
other  lyric  poets.  Opinion  may  be  divided  as  to 
this  ;  but  if  not  unequalled,  she  is  at  least  unsurpassed 
in  this  quality.  Alcaeus  among  her  contemporaries, 
Ibycus  among  her  successors,  perhaps  reach  the  same 
level,  but  so  far  as  can  be  judged  from  the  fragments, 
they  do  not  apply  their  style  to  any  material  with  the 
same  unfaltering  certainty.  Early  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury B.C.  the  secret  of  the  style  became  lost. 

The  well-worn  comparison  of  the  nightingale,  so 
constantly  and  inevitably  applied  to  Sappho  and  her 
poetry,  has  a  real  value  if  it  is  not  carelessly  used. 
From  these  miraculous  lines  in  the  Odyssey,  already 
quoted — 

ft)?  ^'  ore  TlavSapeov  Kovpr}  "^loprjtg 

af]Siii)P  KaXov  aelSrja-iv  eapo^  veov  LcrTa/ULevoio — 


THE   NIGHTINGALE-NOTE  111 

Even  as  when  the  maid  of  Pandarus, 
The  greenwood  nightingale  melodious, 
Amid  the  thickened  leafage  sits  and  sings 
When  the  young  spring  is  waxing  over  us  ; 

And  she  with  many  a  note  and  hurrying  trill 
Pours  forth  her  liquid  voice,  lamenting  still 
Her  own  son  Itylus,  King  Zethus'  child. 
Whom  long  ago  her  folly  made  her  kill — 

which  are  in  fact  a  lyric  fragment  embedded  in  the 
epic  structure,  down  to  Keats's  immortal  ode,  the  dis- 
tance is  great.  In  the  one  we  have  the  bird's  song 
with  all  its  flexible  sweetness,  profusion,  unselfcon- 
sciousness ;  in  the  other  we  hear  it  through  an  atmos- 
phere charged  with  thought,  with  romance,  with  the 
passion  and  mystery  of  life.  In  Sappho  it  is  different 
from  both.  The  nightingale-note  with  her  is  not  so 
much  the  rapture  that  "  feeds  the  heart  of  the  night 
with  fire,"  the  passionate  thronging  of  notes  and  the 
triumphant  burst  of  song,  as  that  low  inward  contralto 
which  is  beyond  the  reach  of  any  other  singer,  and 
in  its  liquid  piercing  sweetness  is  by  itself  and  alone. 
Sometimes  it  is  tremulous  as  if  it  floated  on  an  ebb 
of  passion,  like  the  voice  of  one  who  has  sought  and 
not  found,  and  still  seeks  and  is  not  satisfied  :  the  Ich 
liebe  eine  Blume,  dock  weiss  ich  nicht  welche  of  Heine. 

Die  Nachtigall  schlagt,  und  ich  verstehe 

Den  siissen  Gesang. 
Uns  beiden  ist  so  bang  und  wehe, 

So  weh  und  bang. 

Sometimes  it  is  simply  clear  and  passionless  ;  and  here 
it  is  that  Sappho  reaches  the  absolute  summit  of  the 
lyric.       ' AiTrapOevog  ea-a-ojuiai,  "  Maiden  shall  I  be  for 


112  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

ever  "  ^ :  just  these  two  words  in  their  liquid  beauty, 
their  simple  purity,  might  be  the  final  epitaph  on  a 
poetry  which  with  all  its  swift  ardour  and  flame-like 
passion  is  at  its  inmost  heart  grave,  delicate,  almost 
virginally  austere.  It  is  this  note  that  sounds  in  the 
two  lines  preserved  from  her  last  poem,  addressed  to 
her  daughter  from  her  death-bed — 

aW  ov  yap  Oe/mig  ev  fJiOLcroiroXw  oIklo. 
Op^vov  ejujULevai  '  ovk  cljuljull  irpeirei  TaSe. 

"  It  is  not  right  that  there  be  mourning  in  the  house 
of  poetry  ;  this  befits  not  us."  ^  Into  this  grave,  still 
music  the  fire  and  splendour  of  passion,  the  richness 
and  beauty  of  song,  have  become  absorbed  and  trans- 
muted.    It  is  the  last  note  of  the  Muse  of  Lesbos. 

1  Frag.  96.  «  Yiag.  136. 


II 

THE  AGE  OF  CONCENTRATION: 
SIMONIDES 

In  the  later  part  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  a  great 
change  passed  over  Hellas.  It  put  away  childish 
things ;  the  lovely,  irresponsible  period  of  adolescence 
was  over.  Under  the  pressure  of  a  great  world - 
movement  in  which  it  was  the  centre  and  the  battle- 
ground, it  drew  itself  together  intellectually,  knitted 
its  nerves,  concentrated  and  hardened.  We  see  the 
Hellenic  spirit  no  longer  as  that  of  a  delicate  maiden 
gathering  flowers — apOe'  aixepyovcrav  iraiS'  ayav  airaXav  ^ 
— but  rather  like  one  of  the  awful  figures  of  Michael 
Angelo,  massive  and  brooding,  tortured  by  an  in- 
satiable curiosity  and  a  fierce  desire  of  perfection. 
Greek  poetry  had  still  to  make  what  are  possibly  its 
greatest  achievements,  but  it  made  them  through 
minds  overburdened  with  thought,  and  eyes  at  once 
restless  and  piercing,  which  searched  deep  into  the 
profound  mysteries  of  life.  In  this  poetry  of  fully 
developed  Hellas  the  brain  counts  for  more,  the 
instinct  for  less.  Sparta  was  becoming  brutalised,  and 
poetry  there  dwindled  away.  The  large  diffused  Ionian 
culture  narrowed  upon  Athens.     The  demand  of  the 

1  Sappho,  frag.  121. 

113  „ 


114  THE    LYRIC    POETS 

modern  spirit  was  for  action,  and  again  action,  and 
always  action.  The  drama  arose,  and  merged  into 
itself  the  intellectualised  elements  of  the  lyric,  on  the 
larger  plane  towards  which  men's  minds  had  been 
drawn  by  the  rediscovery  or  reinstatement  of  the  epic. 
Poetry  ceased  to  be  the  natural  flower  of  life :  it 
became  a  weapon,  exquisitely  fine  and  keen,  wielding 
the  resources  of  a  hitherto  unknown  science,  and 
attempting,  not  without  success,  to  become  the 
imaginative  function  of  a  life  tense,  complex,  and 
active  beyond  all  previous  experience. 

Into  this  period  fall  the  names  of  the  last  among 
the  nine  lyric  poets  of  the  canoui  Between  the  birth 
of  Simonides  and  the  death  of  Pindar  there  is  an 
interval  of  about  one  hundred  years.  Simonides, 
belonging  by  date  of  birth  to  an  earlier  generation,  that 
of  the  island-poets  who  gathered  from  all  quarters  of 
the  Hellenic  world  to  the  brilliant  literary  court  of 
Samos,  attained  a  great  age,  and  wrote  much  of  his 
finest  poetry  after  the  Persian  wars.  Pindar,  born 
some  forty  years  later,  lived  on  to  the  time  at  which 
the  Athenian  empire  began  to  break  up.  Bacchylides, 
the  nephew  of  Simonides  and  the  rival  of  Pindar, 
brings  the  series  of  the  great  lyric  poets  to  a  close  just 
after  the  outbreak  of  the  Peloponnesian  war. 

In  this  century,  full  of  cross-currents  and  complex 
developments,  it  is  not  easy  to  trace  any  central  clue, 
still  less  to  fix  any  central  figure  in  poetry.  We  seem 
to  be  watching  not  so  much  a  steady  movement  of 
sunlight  while  the  earth  swings  round  upon  her  axis, 
as  an  electric  storm  full  of  flashes  and  sparkles,  flame 


SIMONIDES   AND   PINDAR  115 

leaping  suddenly  from  one  point  to  another  and  as 
suddenly  extinct. 

There  is  indeed  one  remarkable  figure  whom  it  is 
impossible  to  pass  over,  even  apart  from  the  fact  that 
we  possess  a  fully  representative  body  of  his  poetry. 
Pindar  was  unanimously  placed  by  Greek  judgment  at 
the  head  of  the  lyric  poets,  and  this  estimate  was  con- 
firmed by  the  lucid  and  unbiassed  criticism  of  Quin- 
tilian.  But  he  can  hardly  be  called  the  central  figure 
of  his  period.  The  only  one  of  the  nine  who  belongs 
to  Greece  Proper,  he  is  in  a  way  less  Greek  than  the 
rest.  He  differs  from  all  his  contemporaries  in  seeming 
not  to  belong  to  his  age.  He  is  the  one  great  poet 
produced  by  Thebes;  and  Thebes,  then  as  always, 
stood  curiously  outside  of  Hellas.  The  separatist  atti- 
tude taken  up  by  Boeotia  in  the  Persian  wars  is  only 
the  most  incisive  instance  of  an  aloofness  of  temper 
which  characterises  it  from  first  to  last.  Just  as 
Thebes  gives  the  feeling  of  being  somehow  outside  of 
Hellas,  Pindar  gives  the  feeling  of  being  somehow  out- 
side of  Hellenic  poetry.  The  finest  modern  critics  are 
inconclusive  about  him ;  they  praise  him  and  make 
sudden  reservations ;  they  repeat  one  another,  some- 
times, as  it  would  seem,  mechanically  and  without  full 
conviction.  This  is  because,  consciously  or  not,  they 
are  baffled  by  him.  Under  analysis,  he  becomes  a  mere 
string  of  contradictions.  He  is  the  most  religious  of 
the  Greek  poets;  he  was  accepted  as  inspired  by 
Delphi,  and  here  and  there  gives  utterance,  in  language 
of  unexampled  splendour,  to  the  deepest  religious 
emotions ;  yet  his  odes  give  the  impression  of  one  who 


116  THE   LYRIC    POETS 

worships  nothing  but  worldly  success  and  fame,  unless 
it  be  high  birth.  He  is  a  master  of  language,  who 
seems  to  write  whatever  comes  into  his  head.  He 
affects  us  with  an  almost  speechless  admiration,  and 
then,  in  a  moment,  leaves  us  floundering  in  a  maze  of 
tortured  language  about  things  that  do  not  interest  us. 
"  Few  people  care  for  Pindar  now,"  says  Professor 
Murray  in  a  single  sharp  sentence.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  many  people  ever  cared  for  him,  any  more 
than  he  cared  for  them.  Tendit  in  altos  nubium  tr actus, 
says  Horace  of  him ;  and  indeed  there  is  something 
about  him  meteoric,  as  of  one  whose  poetry  is  barely 
human.  At  one  moment,  borne  on  by  the  rush  of  his 
language,  we  feel  as  if  there  was  never  any  poetry  like 
it ;  at  another,  we  are  merely  dazzled  and  fatigued, 
and  the  impression  he  gives  in  the  original  (as  he 
almost  uniformly  does  in  a  translation)  is  of  something 
grotesque  and  almost  monstrous.  The  momentum  of 
his  poetry  is  perhaps  unequalled.  The  science  of  his 
art  never  fails  him.  He  handles  great  rhythmical 
masses  with  absolute  mastery  and  precision.  The 
lifting  movement  and  great  crash  of  sound  in  his  odes 
are  almost  incredible  in  their  magnitude ;  his  instru- 
ment is  an  organ  with  all  the  stops  out.  But  we  ache 
in  this  whirl  of  sound  for  the  vox  humana,  or  a  phrase 
of  the  lovely  flute-stop  that  goes  straight  to  the  heart. 
Of  Pindar,  then,  as  of  few  poets,  it  may  be  said  that 
there  is  to  him  nil  simile  aut  secundum.  A  personality 
so  constituted  never  recurred,  and  all  attempts  to 
imitate  it  are  foredoomed  failures.  He  was  created  to 
show  what  might  be  done  in  art  and  not  done  a  second 


THE    THEBAN   EAGLE  117 

time.  One  might  perhaps  without  being  over-fanciful 
draw  an  analogy  between  him  and  the  only  other  great 
figure  in  the  history  of  Thebes.  Her  two  imperishable 
names  are  those  of  Pindar  and  Epaminondas.  The 
two  men  came  at  times  when  the  art  of  lyric  poetry 
and  the  art  of  warfare  had  been  developed  and  reduced 
to  system ;  they  revolutionised  the  practice  of  their 
arts  by  daring  genius,  that  upset  all  established  ideas. 
Take  one  of  Pindar's  great  crashing  phrases — one  like 
the  incomparable 

€K    S'    ap     avTOv    iroiJ.(^oKv^av    SaKpva     yrjpaKecov 

yXecjydpcov 
dv  ire  pi  y^v^av  eirel  ydOrja-ev  e^alperoi/ 
yovov  iSiidv  KoXXia-TOv  dvSpcov, 

I  must  reluctantly  make  an  exception  here  to  my  rule 
of  translating  any  Greek  that  I  quote ;  for  the  essence 
of  a  phrase  like  this  is  just  that  it  is  untranslateable  : 
the  volume  and  splendour  of  sound  in  it  are  the 
poetry.  Its  impact  is  as  irresistible  as  that  of  the 
wedged  column  of  fifty  shields  in  depth  that  rammed 
the  flower  of  the  Spartan  army  to  wreck  at  Leuctra. 
But  Leuctra  set  no  fashion  of  tactics,  and  Pindar  set 
no  fashion  of  poetry ;  both  remain  dazzling  and  lonely 
achievements.  A  generation  after  Epaminondas,  the 
art  of  war  was  put  on  a  different  footing  by  Alexander. 
Within  Pindar's  own  lifetime,  the  central  life  of  poetry 
passed  away  from  the  lyric.  When  the  Theban  general 
lay  with  the  spear-head  in  his  breast  at  Mantineia  and 
was  told  that  the  wound  was  mortal,  "  Then,"  he  said, 
**you  must  make  peace."     Pindar's  last  word  might 


118  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

have  been  similar:  ''Then  you  must  close  the  roll  of 
the  lyric  poets."  There  was  nothing  else  to  be  done : 
TO  TTOpcra)  S'  ecTTi  cro<poig  a/Barov  Kacr6<poL9  '  ov  jur]  Siw^co  • 
Keivos  eiriv — "  For  the  wise  and  the  simple  alike  the  path 
leads  no  further:  I  will  not  pursue  it:  it  were  in 
vain."i 

I  quoted  just  now  a  phrase  from  a  poem  of  Mere- 
dith's, in  which,  as  in  much  of  his  poetry,  there  seems 
to  me  to  be  something  more  nearly  approaching  the 
manner  of  Pindar  than  in  the  work  of  any  other 
modern  poet.  Both,  in  the  words  of  the  admirable 
criticism  by  Corinna  upon  Pindar,  "  sow  not  with  the 
hand,  but  with  the  whole  sack."  As  regards  insight 
into  life  and  power  of  thought  they  of  course  stand 
far  apart.  But  they  are  akin  in  their  dazzling  use  of 
language,  in  the  intricacy  and  splendour  of  their 
orchestration,  as  well  as  in  their  swift  transitions  and 
violent  metaphors,  continually  verging  on  the  grotesque 
but  saved  by  a  sublime  self-confidence.  Let  me  quote 
from  this  same  poem  in  illustration.  It  is  not  written 
in  elaborate  and  involved  metres  like  those  of  the 
formal  Ode,  such  as  he  uses,  for  instance,  in  the  Odes 
in  Contribution  to  the  Song  of  French  History :  it  is  in 
regular  stanzas  of  simple  construction ;  but  this  makes 
its  essentially  Pindaric  quality  in  evolution  of  thought 
and  use  of  diction  the  more  striking. 

With  shudders  chill  as  aconite 
The  couchant  chewer  of  the  cud 
Will  start  at  times  in  pussy  fright 
Before  the  dogs,  when  reads  her  sprite 
The  streaks  predicting  streams  of  blood. 

^  Pindar,  Olymp.  iii.  45. 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE   ll9 

That  is  Pindar  all  over.  Pindar  all  over  too  is  the 
end  of  the  piece  with  its  long  ascending  movement 
and  final  crash  of  sound — 

Should  they  once  deem  our  emblem  Pard 
Wagger  of  tail  for  all  save  war, 

Mechanically  screwed  to  flail 
His  flanks  by  Presses  conjuring  fear  ; 
A  money-bag  with  head  and  tail  ; — 
Too  late  may  valour  then  avail ! 
As  you  beheld,  my  cannonier, 

When  with  the  staff  of  Benedek 
On  the  plateau  of  Koniggriitz 
You  saw  below  that  wedging  speck, 
Foresaw  proud  Austria  rammed  to  wreck 
Where  Chlum  drove  deep  in  smoky  jets. 

BovXo/uLai  efxavTw  ^rjp,  ovk  aXXw,  "  I  mean  to  live  for 
myself,  not  for  some  one  else,"  were,  according  to  Eusta- 
thius,  the  scornful  words  flung  by  Pindar  at  Simonides. 
They  express  at  once  his  strength  and  his  weakness. 
He  will  be  no  man's  servant ;  neither  will  he  be  the 
servant  of  any  cause.  At  a  time  when  the  great  flush 
of  patriotism  passed  over  Hellas,  he  walked  among 
his  dreams  and  his  music,  self-absorbed  and  alone. 
Salamis  and  Plataea  are  incidents  he  just  deigns  to 
notice,  while  he  breaks  into  a  passion  of  rapture  over 
the  victories  of  style :  "  The  thing  that  one  says  well 
goes  forth  with  a  voice  unto  everlasting."  This  atti- 
tude he  imposed  upon  his  contemporaries  by  the  sheer 
mass  and  splendour  of  his  genius.  For  the  Athenian 
democracy  he  can  have  felt  nothing  but  a  distant  con- 
tempt ;  it  is  the  Xd^pog  a-rparog,  the  "  horde,"  of  the 
second  Pythian.     Yet  when  for  once  he  dipped  his  hand 


120  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

into  the  sack  and  flung  to  Athens,  "  like  wealthy  men 
who  care  not  how  they  give,"  that  string  of  gorgeous 
epithets  that  flash  like  jewels,  "  0  shining,  violet- 
crowned,  song-famed,  illustrious  town,"  they  were 
greedily  accepted  as  though  a  gift  from  some  god's 
hand,  and  taken  by  Athens  for  her  motto  through  all 
the  ages.  Poetry  to  him  moved  among  things  greater 
than  these ;  why  his  poetry  is  so  perplexing  and  in 
the  end  so  unsatisfying  is  that  some  of  the  things  he 
cares  about  seem  really  great,  and  others  quite  infini- 
tesimally  small. 

€7rd/jL€poi '  TL  Se  Ti9 ;   t/  S'  ov  Tig ;   a-Kiag  ovap 
avOpcoTTog '   aXX  orav  aiyXa  Sioa-SoTog  eXOr] 
\a/JL7rp6v  (peyyog  eireorriv  avSpwv  Koi  ywe/Xt^o?  aiu>v, 

"  Things  of  a  day,  what  are  we  and  what  are  we  not  ? 
The  dream  of  a  shadow  is  humankind  ;  yet  when  a  god- 
given  splendour  falls,  light  shines  radiant  upon  men 
and  life  is  sweet."  ^  So  he  says  at  a  thrilling  height  of 
rapt  emotion;  and  then,  apparently  with  the  same 
thrill,  he  will  speak  of  a  horse-race  or  a  dinner-party 
as  though  these  things  too  were  at  the  heart  of  life. 
Above  all,  we  miss  in  him  tears  and  laughter ;  all  the 
common  and  dear  emotions  are  left  untouched  by  him, 
and  seemingly  left  him  untouched.  He  is  one  of  those 
great  poets — they  include  some  of  the  greatest — who 
are  without  love  and  without  pity. 

The  qualities  which  are  absent  in  Pindar  are  just 
those  which  are  conspicuous  in  Simonides.  If  not  the 
greatest  among  the  Greek  lyrists — and  in  certain  specific 

1  Pyth.  viii.  95-7. 


#' 


THE    TEMPERED    LYRIC  121 

lyrical  qualities  five  at  least  out  of  the  nine  may  claim 
to  excel  him — he  is  the  most  broadly  and  nobly 
Hellenic.  He  is  distinguished  beyond  all  the  rest  by 
Greek  refinement.  All  his  work  has  a  tempered 
dignity  and  suavity,  combined  with  that  specific 
quality  of  tenderness  which  makes  him  a  spirit  akin 
to  Virgil.  His  genius  seems  to  have  been  one  of  those 
which  mature  slowly  and  require  length  of  life  for 
their  full  development.  In  this  respect  he  presents  an 
interesting  parallel  with  Sophocles.  Both  lived  into 
their  ninetieth  year,  and  both  did  their  finest  work  in 
poetry  after  an  age  at  which  the  springs  of  poetry  have 
in  most  men  run  dry.  Both  represent,  more  fully 
than  any  other  among  the  generations  of  poets  with 
whom  they  were  contemporary,  the  whole  life  and  pro- 
gress of  poetry  during  their  own  age;  and  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  over  which  their  joint  lives 
extend  are  a  period  which,  taking  it  for  all  in  all,  is 
the  most  wonderful  in  human  history.  Both  give  in 
poetry  the  Hellenic  temper  at  its  finest  and  fullest; 
its  sanity,  its  culture,  its  patriotism,  its  large,  grave, 
temperate  handling  of  life.  To  both  the  double-edged 
epithet  of  faultless  may  be  attached  without  implying 
the  note  of  depreciation  which  the  word  often  is  meant 
to  convey. 

Simonides  is  the  last  of  the  great  island  poets. 
Ionian  culture  is  now  flooding  back  to  concentrate  in 
Athens.  The  brilliant  constellation  of  the  Lesbian  and 
Samian  poets  had  set.  Ceos,  his  birthplace,  is  only 
divided  by  a  few  miles  of  sea  from  Sunium,  and  is 
almost  an  outlying  fragment  of  Attica.     The  Asiatic 


122  THE   LYKIC   POETS 

influences  which  helped  to  mould  the  civilisation  of 
the  larger  and  richer  islands  off  the  Ionian  coast  did 
not  reach  over  to  it ;  it  breathed  the  thin  clear  air  of 
Greece.  Alone  among  the  Cyclades,  Ceos  sent  its 
little  fleet,  two  triremes  and  two  fifty-oared  galleys,  to 
fight  against  the  Persians  at  Artemisium.  According 
to  legend,  it  was  the  fragment  of  a  larger  island,  four- 
fifths  of  which  had  sunk  under  the  sea,  and  a  touch 
of  mystery  and  sanctity  still  clung  about  it.  Poetry 
and  music  were  hereditary  arts  in  the  family  of 
Simonides.  It  was  as  a  trained  poet  of  recognised  dis- 
tinction that  he  left  his  native  island  for  the  court  of 
the  Peisistratids.  The  rest  of  his  life  was  mainly  spent 
at  Athens.  There  was  an  interlude  of  some  years  in 
Thessaly,  spent  among  the  castles  of  the  feudal  nobility; 
and  the  last  years  of  his  old  age  were  passed  at  Syracuse, 
where  the  splendid  court  of  Hiero  welcomed  him,  to- 
gether with  Pindar  and  Aeschylus.  But  broadly  speak- 
ing, we  may  call  him  not  only  the  link  between  Ionia 
and  Athens,  but  the  first  of  the  great  Athenian  poets. 
In  what  survives  of  his  lyrics  likewise  we  feel  already 
the  specific  Athenian  tone.  They  have  the  quality 
which  made  Athens,  from  the  time  of  the  Persian 
wars  onward,  the  heart  and  brain  of  the  Greek  world, 
"  the  Hellas  of  Hellas "  in  the  striking  phrase  attri- 
buted to  Thucydides.  In  becoming  Athenian,  Greek 
poetry  both  gained  and  lost.  But  both  in  the  loss 
and  in  the  gain  it  became  more  intensely  Greek.  It 
parted  finally  with  romance.  The  piercing  sweetness 
of  the  earlier  lyric  passed  away :  its  lovely  childishness 
and  delicate  magic    were    not    for    that  age  of  dust 


THE   NARROW  WAY  123 

and  sweat.  Political  and  ethical  thought  were  filling 
three-fourths  of  life.  The  human  intellect  was  for  the 
first  time  feeling  and  exercising  all  its  powers.  Poetry 
answered  to  the  demands  of  life ;  it  became  intellect- 
ualised;  it  grew  fine,  a  little  hard,  like  a  stripped 
athlete  trained  down  to  the  last  ounce :  when  at  its 
best,  it  is  a  miracle ;  missing  its  best,  if  but  by  the 
difference  of  a  hair-breadth,  it  is  hardly  poetry  at  all. 

The  invention  of  prose  had  the  effect  on  poetry  not 
only  of  delimiting  its  province,  but  of  laying  on  it  new, 
stringent,  and  it  might  almost  seem  impossible  require- 
ments. Just  at  the  time  when  it  was  becoming  more  and 
more  a  vehicle  of  thought,  it  found  itself  faced  by  and 
forced  into  rivalry  with  a  new  art  designed  to  express 
thought  directly.  The  demand  was  made  of  it,  while 
remaining  poetry,  to  do  the  work  of  prose.  It  did  this ; 
but  at  a  great  cost.  On  the  one  hand,  it  ran  the  con- 
stant risk  of  becoming  prosaic.  In  the  effort  to  save 
itself  from  this  danger  it  incurred  another,  that  of 
being  consciously  and  artificially  poetical.  AeTrra  S' 
arapTTog',  vrjXerjg  S*  avajKa  '  el  Se  Xeyei  T19  aAXco?,  irXareia 
KeXevOog — "  Narrow  is  the  path,  merciless  the  necessity, 
but  broad  is  the  road  for  him  who  speaks  amiss."  ^ 
Simonides  treads  that  narrow  path  with  a  sure  foot, 
Pindar  (if  the  traditional  interpretation  of  his  words 
is  correct)  spoke  with  contempt  of  his  rival's  poetry 
as  an  art  that  could  be  learned,  as  uninspired  and 
mechanical.  The  same  criticism  has  been  made  on 
the  Odes  of  Horace.  It  will  be  time  enough  to  con- 
sider  its    relevance    when    the  mechanism  has    been 

1  Alcman,  frag.  81 ;  Bacchylides,  frag.  37. 


124  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

mastered,  when  any  one  learns,  or  can  teach,  the  art  of 
producing  poetry  like  theirs.  At  whatever  point  we 
draw  the  line  between  art  and  inspiration,  the  grave 
beauty  and  noble  tenderness  of  Simonides,  even  more 
than  his  faultless  grace  and  finish,  are  what  give  him 
his  place  among  the  master-poets. 

That  place  indeed  has,  but  for  the  attack  of  Pindar, 
never  been  seriously  challenged.  His  reputation  in 
his  own  lifetime  was  immense  and  almost  universal. 
The  very  mythology  which  grew  round  his  name,  as  it 
did  round  those  of  all  the  great  poets,  took  a  colour 
from  the  quality  of  his  genius.  The  legends  about 
Pmdar  are  fantastic  and  extravagant:  bees  swarmed 
about  his  lips  at  Thespiae ;  he  heard  the  god  Pan  sing- 
ing one  of  his  own  hymns.  Those  about  Simonides 
have  a  peculiar  refinement  and  gravity  like  his  own 
grave  and  refined  poetry.  He  lived  under  a  special 
divine  care  and  guardianship. 

I  find  it  written  of  Simonides, 

That,  travelling  in  strange  countries,  once  he  found 

A  corpse  that  lay  exposed  upon  the  ground. 

For  which,  with  pains,  he  caused  due  obsequies 

To  be  performed,  and  paid  all  holy  fees. 

Soon  after  this  man's  ghost  unto  him  came, 

And  told  him  not  to  sail,  as  was  his  aim. 

On  board  a  ship  then  ready  for  the  seas. 

Simonides,  admonished  by  the  ghost, 

Remained  behind  :  the  ship  the  following  day 

Set  sail,  was  wrecked,  and  all  on  board  were  lost. 

Thus  was  the  tenderest  Poet  that  could  be, 

Who  sang  in  ancient  Greece  his  moving  lay, 

Saved  out  of  many  by  his  piety. 

So  Wordsworth  wrote,  at  the  time  which  was  the 
culminating  period  of  his  poetry.     I  have  quoted  the 


THE   TOUCH   OF   AUTUMN  125 

sonnet  in  full,  partly  because  the  authentic  text  of 
1803  has  never  hitherto  been  correctly  reprinted,  but 
also  because  it  shows,  even  better  than  other  more 
widely  known  passages,  the  strong  attraction  that  the 
one  poet  exercised  over  the  other ;  and  because,  like  a 
good  deal  of  Wordsworth's  finest  work,  it  is  written  in 
something  very  near  to  the  Simonidean  manner.  In 
both  there  is  the  same  simple  gravity  and  delicacy, 
the  same  absence  of  any  apparent  effort,  the  same 
lucid  straightforwardness  that  is  almost  like  that  of 
prose — "  like,  but  ah,  how  different ! "  But  the  Greek 
Wordsworth,  more  fortunate  than  his  English  successor, 
carried  the  divine  favour  through  life.  His  fame  was 
not  deferred  to  his  old  age;  and  in  his  old  age  the 
stream  of  poetry  still  issued  with  the  same  limpid 
melody,  the  same  clear  beauty. 

Yet  as  he  outlived  his  own  generation,  so  he  out- 
lived the  summer-time  of  the  Greek  lyric.  In  the 
still  beauty  of  some  of  the  fragments  there  is  an 
autumnal  quality,  as  of  one  of  those  golden  days  that 
carry  the  first  message  of  the  year's  decay.  "Who 
that  is  wise  in  mind,"  he  says,  "  would  praise  Cleobulus 
the  dweller  in  Lindus,  who  set  the  might  of  a  pillar 
in  rivalry  with  the  ever-flowing  rivers,  and  the  spring 
flowers,  and  the  golden  flame  of  the  sun  and  the  shining 
moon  and  the  eddies  of  the  sea  ?  For  all  things 
are  subject  to  the  Gods ;  and  as  for  a  stone,  even 
the  hands  of  mortals  shatter  it.  Behold  here  the 
thought  of  a  foolish  man."^  Not  marble  nor  the 
gilded  monuments  of  princes  shall  outlive  this  powerful 

1  Frag.  57. 


126  THE    LYRIC   POETS 

rhyme ;  but  to  poetry  also,  as  to  the  monument,  decay 
comes  in  the  end ;  the  hands  of  mortals,  as  they  have 
built  it  up,  pull  it  down,  and  all  things  are  subject  to 
the  Gods.  In  the  poetry  of  Simonides  there  is  that 
settled  perfection  at  which  poetry  only  stays  for  a  little 
while  before  she  girds  herself  for  a  fresh  journey.  'A 
Moiara  eirep-^erai  iravTa  OepiCpfjieva,  as  he  says  in  an- 
other passage  ;  tJ-ri  jmoi  KaTairavere — "  The  Muse  moves 
onward,  gathering  all  things  to  her  harvest ;  prithee 
stay  her  not."  ^  Stay  her  not ;  no,  the  attempt  would 
be  idle,  for  she  will  not  stay.  He  more  than  once 
takes  the  tone  of  a  poet  of  the  older  generation, 
looking  with  doubtful  eyes  on  the  new  art,  the  work 
of  younger  and  slighter  poets.  It  had  not  the  old 
potency :  Kovpcov  S^  e^eXey^^ei  veo<s  otvo9  ov  to  irepvcn 
Swpov  a/uLTriXov — "  the  new  wine  of  boys  puts  not  to 
shame  last  year's  gift  of  the  vine."  ^  The  allusion  is 
said  to  be  to  an  ode  of  Pindar's,  in  which  he  claimed 
precedence  for  "  the  flower  of  newer  songs."  It  would 
apply  equally  to  the  poetry  of  his  own  kinsman,  Bacchy- 
lides,  that  thinner  and  less  generous  vintage  which  was 
the  last  product  of  the  waning  lyric  impulse. 

Throughout  his  own  work  there  is  that  perfect  and 
seemingly  spontaneous  balance  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion which  makes  great  literature.  But  we  may  distin- 
guish in  it  two  sides  of  the  higher  and  more  intimate 
quality  which  makes  great  poetry ;  or  rather,  I  should 
say,  a  union  in  markedly  different  proportions  of  two 
qualities.  In  his  tenderer  poetry  he  is  not  weak; 
in  his  stronger  poetry  he  is  not  hard  ;  but  the  harmony 

*  Frag.  46.  ^  yj-ag.  75. 


SWEETNESS   AND    STRENGTH       127 

is  variously  compounded.  From  the  pieces  of  the 
latter  class  we  should  not  know  that  we  were  dealing 
with  a  poet  of  unsurpassed  sweetness ;  from  those  of 
the  former  we  should  hardly  know  that  we  were  deal- 
ing with  a  poet  of  unsurpassed  dignity  and  elevation. 

The  famous  Danae  fragment  (37)  is  the  finest  sur- 
viving example  of  the  tenderness  of  Simonides ;  the 
delicacy  of  phrasing,  the  refinement  of  diction,  is  in 
it  applied  to  a  subject  of  eternal  beauty  and  pathos. 
For  that  picture  of  the  baby,  unconscious  of  night  and 
storm  and  danger,  asleep  in  its  mother's  arms,  "  cheek 
against  cheek,"  irpocroiirov  kXiOcv  irpoa-voirw^  while  she 
whispers  above  it  words  that  have  nothing  in  them 
but  love  and  sweet  submission  to  God's  will,  there  is 
no  parallel  in  pre-Christian  art;  it  is  the  first,  and 
among  the  most  perfect,  of  those  pictures  of  the 
Virgin  and  Child  which  hold  a  central  place  in  the 
love  and  awed  admiration  of  mankind.  The  same  ex- 
quisite delicacy,  "  a  soft  and  solemn-breathing  sound  " 
that  rises  "like  a  stream  of  rich-distilled  perfume," 
is  shown  in  other  fragments  :  we  may  note  especially 
three.  One  is  the  passage  describing,  or  rather  em- 
bodying, for  the  picture  is  conveyed  without  a  word  of 
distinct  description,  the  winter-calm  of  the  days  of  the 
halcyon. 

o)?  oiroTav  yeiimepiov  Kara  juLtjua  irivvcrKU 
Zeiy?  a/uLara  recrcrapa  Koi  SeKa, 
XaOavejuLov  re  /ullv  wpav  KoXeoicriv  eiTL-^ovLoi 
Ipav  TratSorpocpov  TroiKiXa^ 

1  Frag.  12. 


128  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

It  is  as  wonderful  an  anticipation  of  the  poetry  of 
Christmas-tide  (as  you  have  it  for  instance  in  the 
speech  of  Marcellus  in  the  opening  scene  of  Hamlet)  as 
the  Danae  is  of  the  poetry  of  the  Nativity.  The  two 
others  have  not  this  note  of  strange  magic ;  they  are 
purely  Hellenic  in  their  import,  and  are  distinguished 
from  the  work  of  the  other  lyric  poets  not  by  their 
feeling,  but  by  the  peculiar  and  indefinable  charm  of 
expression.  If  I  quote  them  in  English,  it  must  be 
with  the  warning  that  no  translation  can  give  their 
specific  quality,  or  make  it  clear  how  essential  and 
how  subtle  is  the  difference  between  them  and  the 
passages  from  other  Greek  poets  that  treat  of  similar 
motives.  One  is  the  fragment  (36)  beginning,  ov^e 
yap  OL  irpoTcpou  ttot  eireXovTo — **  For  not  even  they 
who  were  earlier,  and  were  half  divine  sons  of  royal 
gods,  not  even  they  fulfilled  their  life  and  reached  old 
age  without  toil,  without  wasting,  without  peril."  The 
motive  is  like  that  of  a  celebrated  passage  in  Pindar's 
third  Pythian — 

aiuDv  S^  aarcpaXrjg 
ovK  eyevT   out   A^iaKiSa  irapa  JlriKel — 

"  Secure  life  befel  not  either  Peleus  son  of  Aeacus  or 
divine  Cadmus :  yet  they  of  mortals  are  said  to  have 
reached  the  top  of  happiness,  they  who  heard  the  gold- 
frontleted  Muses  singing  on  the  mountain  and  in 
seven -gated  Thebes,  when  the  one  wedded  great-eyed 
Harmonia,  and  the  one  noble  Thetis,  child  of  Nereus 
the  well-counselling."  This  passage  is  so  fine  that  it 
was  chosen,  as  you  may  remember,  by  Arnold  for  an 
instance  of  the  evolution  of  genuine  poetry.       It  is 


UNIVEHCJT 

o  ■■-■• 


THE    POETRY    OF   THOUGHT         129 

radiant  and  magnificent  as  only  Pindar's  best  work  is : 
yet  when  we  turn  from  it  to  the  still  music  of  the 
other,  it  is  Simonides  who  seems  to  be  the  finer  artist. 
So  likewise  in  the  other  fragment  (53),  the  description 
of  Meleager,  "  who  outdid  all  young  men  with  the  spear, 
casting  it  over  eddying  Anaurus  out  of  lolcos  rich  in 
vines."  The  lines  at  once  recall  another  hero,  the 
half-shod  man  who  crossed  Anaurus,  and  the  gorgeous 
central  movement  of  the  fourth  Pythian;  and  on 
senses  half  stunned  by  the  torrent  of  Pindar's  music, 
the  low  clear  note  of  Simonides  seems  to  come,  in  its 
delicate  perfection,  as  a  symbol  of  what  is  most  vital, 
and  most  unapproachable,  in  Greek  poetry. 

In  the  other  type  which  we  find  among  the  great 
fragments  of  Simonides  there  is  a  more  matured 
gravity,  a  more  exalted  but  equally  restrained  passion. 
They  are  the  poetry  of  thought  made  luminous  by 
emotion,  rather  than  of  emotion  controlled  by  thought. 
Such,  for  instance,  is  the  Simonidean  rendering  of  the 
line  which  in  the  earliest  Greek  poetry  of  reflection 
had  said  that  "  the  gods  lay  sweat  in  front  of  virtue." 
"  There  is  a  tale  that  Virtue  once  dwelt  on  cliffs  hard 
to  climb,  but  now  inhabits  the  holy  place  of  gods  and 
meets  not  the  eyes  of  mortals  visibly,  save  him  on 
whom  comes  bitter  inward  sweat  and  who  climbs  to 
the  top  of  manhood."  ^  To  this  type  too  belongs  the 
noble  fragment  of  a  threne  on  the  dead  at  Ther- 
mopylae: "Whose  fortune  is  glorious,  and  fair  their 
doom,  whose  tomb  is  an  altar,  and  for  lamentation 
they  have  remembrance,  and   for  pity,  praise;   and 

i  Frag.  58. 

I 


130  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

such  a  monument  neither  rust  nor  all-conquering  Time 
shall  make  dim."  ^ 

In  this  passage,  with  its  stately  beauty,  is  the  first 
foreshadowing  of  the  transition.  We  hear  in  it,  for  the 
first  time  in  literature,  low  down  as  it  were  under  the 
poetry,  the  tone  of  Attic  prose.  In  some  of  the  later 
fragments  of  the  Simonidean  lyric  this  tone  recurs 
more  unmistakeably.  Lyric  poetry  is  becoming  used 
for  a  purpose  beyond  itself.  The  springs  of  feeling 
are  being  diverted  into  the  dry  channel  of  thought, 
and  used  to  turn  wheels  of  the  intellect.  In  the  long 
passage  of  reflective  and  almost  argumentative  verse 
which  is  quoted  and  commented  on  in  Plato's  Prota- 
gorasy  one  sees  the  lyric  ode  as  a  thing  that  has  ful- 
filled its  function  and  will  by-and-bye  become  obsolete. 
One  sees  the  end  coming  still  more  clearly  in  another 
fragment  (70),  if  it  may  be  accepted  as  authentic 
on  the  shaky  testimony  of  Sextus  Empiricus  adversus 
Mathematicos — 

ovSe  KaXag  croipiag  earrlv  "XpLpi^ 
el  /mrj  ri?  ep(ei  are/iAvav  vyUiav. 

"There  is  no  charm  in  beauteous  wisdom  unless  one 
has  venerable  health."  It  sounds  like  an  intentional 
parody.  You  have  the  thing  full-blown  in  the  Paean 
to  Health  by  Ariphron  of  Sicyon,  an  otherwise  un- 
known writer.  "  Health,  most  honoured  of  deities,  may 
I  dwell  with  thee  for  what  remains  of  life  and  mayest 
thou  be  my  willing  housemate  " — so  it  begins,  and  it 
goes  on  at  the  same  level.     It  is   the  bastard  lyric, 

^  Frag.  4. 


'?'■: 


THE    DOWNWARD    PATH  131 

such  as  desolated  our  own  poetry  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  "  Hail,  Solitude,  romantic  maid  " — every  one 
knows  the  kind  of  thing.  This  was  the  downward  path 
that  lyric  poetry  took  in  Greece.  It  rapidly  became 
formal  and  scholastic.  On  the  one  hand  it  lost  itself 
in  a  barren  wilderness  of  abstractions ;  on  the  other  it 
developed  into  that  gaudy  and  tumid  rhetoric  which 
has  since  then  been  almost  inseparably  associated  with 
the  name  of  the  dithyramb.  AVhen  Aristotle  wrote 
his  Poetics,  the  term  SiOvpaiuL^oTroiriTiKrj  had  come  to 
be  used  pretty  much  in  the  sense  of  lyric  poetry 
generally ;  and  the  final  decadence  was  reached  in  the 
hands  of  the  dithyrambist  Timotheus,  who  was  born 
in  the  year  of  the  death  of  Pindar : 

So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confusion. 

Timotheus  represents  the  corruption  of  the  lyric. 
His  enormous  popularity,  which  lasted  long  after  his 
death,  was  the  popularity  that  attaches,  in  all  ages,  to 
work  that  is  showy,  arrogant,  and  insincere.  A  famous 
fragment  expresses  his  attitude  towards  art — 

ovK  aeiSoo  to,  Trakaia, 

Kaiva  yap  fxaXa  Kpeia-croi)  • 

veog  6  Ztevg  PaariXevei 

TO  TToXai  S'  riv  K^oVo?  OLpyjMV  • 

aTTiTO)  Movcra  TraXaia. 

"  I  sing  not  the  old  songs,  for  the  new  are  far  better. 
Zeus  is  the  new  king  where  Cronos  was  lord  of  old ; 
let  the  old  Muse  begone."  ^  In  their  jaunty  arrogance 
— even  the  rhythm  in  the  original  has  a  distinct  touch 
of  vulgarity — these  lines  are  a  strange  contrast  to 
*  Athenaeus,  iii.  122  D. 


132  THE    LYRIC   POETS 

the  flutings  of  the  earlier  lyric,  when  poetry  was  full 
of  the  joy  and  eagerness  of  its  youth,  and  the  new 
songs  were  something  fresh  and  divine.  Set  them 
beside  the  lovely  invocation  of  Alcman — 

Mftjo"*  aye,  Mwo-a  Xlyeia  TroXv/ULjuieXeg 

aievdoiSe  /meXog 

veo'^IULOv  OLpye  irapcrevoi^  aeiSev — 

"  Muse,  clear-voiced  Muse,  singer  for  ever,  come,  begin 
a  new  song,  a  song  manifold,  for  maidens  to  sing,"  ^  and 
you  have  the  whole  difference  between  a  new-born  and 
a  dying  art.  It  is  a  reflection  and  symbol  of  the  change 
that  had  passed  over  Greek  life.  At  an  interval  of 
three  hundred  years,  Terpander  and  Timotheus  took 
their  new  music  and  new  poetry  to  Sparta.  The  lyre 
of  seven  strings  brought  with  him  by  Terpander  to  the 
Dorian  city  was  the  accompaniment  to  a  new  poetry, 
of  hitherto  unknown  range,  freshness,  and  flexibility ; 
and  both  were  welcomed  in  the  Sparta  of  those  early 
times,  then  the  centre  of  the  simple  and  high  Hellenic 
culture, 

evO   aiyjxa  re  vewv  OdWei  koi  /ULcocra  Xiyeia 
KOL  SUa  evpvdyvLa — 

"  where  blooms  the  spear  of  young  warriors,  and  the 
clear-voiced  Muse,  and  righteousness  in  the  broad 
streets."  ^  Timotheus  brought  his  new  eleven-stringed 
lyre  and  his  florid  modern  poetry  to  a  Sparta  where 
iron  military  discipline  was  the  one  virtue  left.  In 
all  else,  glory  and  loveliness  had  passed  away.     The 

^  Frag.  1.  a.  Terpander,  frag.  6. 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE    LYRIC      133 

life  of  poetry,  like  the  life  of  the  state,  had  lost  the 
principle  of  growth.  Conservatism  was  the  only  refuge 
from  anarchy.  The  Spartan  ephor  who  cut  the  strings 
away  from  the  lyre  of  Timotheus  is  the  concrete 
symbol  of  an  age  which,  finding  its  own  art  debased  or 
dead,  vainly  tries  to  go  on  living  on  the  art  of  the 
past.  It  was  the  breaking  of  the  white  staves  over 
the  grave  of  Greek  lyric  poetry. 

But  long  before  this,  lyric  poetry  had  been  under- 
going that  differentiation  of  function  which  is  the  sign 
that  life  is  about  to  develop  new  forms.  Simonides  is 
not  only  one  of  the  greatest,  and  perhaps  the  most  fully 
representative  of  the  Greek  lyrists,  but  the  greatest  of 
the  Greek  epigrammatists. 

The  consideration  of  the  epigram  only  belongs  to  a 
study  of  the  Greek  lyric  in  so  far  as  the  epigram  em- 
bodied lyrical  qualities  and  drew  into  itself  part  of  the 
lyric  impulse.  It  had  been  a  form  used  not  only  by  the 
elegists,  but  on  occasion  by  the  melic  poets  also — by 
Sappho,  for  instance,  and  by  Anacreon.  Simonides  gave 
it  a  fresh  life,  a  new  amplitude  and  dignity ;  in  his  hands 
it  assumed  a  poetical  importance  co-ordinate  with  that 
of  the  Ode.  How  nearly  the  spirit  of  the  two  distinct 
poetical  forms  approximates  with  him  is  obvious  from 
instances  where  he  has  used  both  forms  upon  the 
same  subject.  The  splendid  fragment  of  his  Ode  on 
the  heroes  of  Thermopylae,  to  which  I  have  already 
made  reference,  is  hardly  distinguishable,  except  in 
metrical  form,  from  those  epitaphs  on  the  saviours  of 
Greece  which  are  the  most  famous  of  his  writings. 
These  epigrams,  and  others  of  his,  reach  not  only  the 


134  THE  LYRIC   POETS 

highest  level  in  their  kind,  but  a  point  beyond  which 
it  seems  inconceivable  that  art  can  go.  As  faultless  in 
form  as  they  are  noble  in  thought  and  profound  in 
their  restrained  feeling,  they  are  among  the  perfect 
things  in  poetry.  At  that  height  and  tension  all 
poetry  tends  to  merge  in  the  lyric ;  for  the  lyric  in  its 
vital  quality  might  almost  be  defined  as  that  poetry  in 
which,  as  in  music,  form  and  substance  coalesce,  and  the 
thought  becomes  indistinguishable  from  the  emotion. 

The  nearest  analogy  to  this  in  English  poetry  is  the 
sonnet.  In  the  Golden  Treasury  of  the  lest  Songs  and 
Lyrical  Poems  in  the  English  Language — that  is  its  full 
title — my  predecessor  Francis  Palgrave  included  with- 
out hesitation  a  large  number  of  sonnets  among  the 
pieces  which  conform  more  strictly  to  a  technical 
definition  of  the  lyric.  Sonnets  form  about  one-fifth 
of  the  whole  number  of  poems  in  that  collection — I 
speak  of  the  volume  as  originally  published — and  I  sup- 
pose no  one  has  ever  felt  that  they  are  out  of  tone  with 
the  other  poems  or  that  they  impair  the  lyrical  quality 
of  the  collection.  But  they  are  in  any  case  only  lyrics 
with  a  difference.  It  is  worth  noticing,  though  it  is  not 
a  point  on  which  stress  can  be  laid,  that  they  lack  both 
of  the  two  formal  qualities  distinctive  of  lyric  poetry 
according  to  the  Greek  definition — the  strophic  con- 
struction and  the  mixed  musical  time.  The  chief 
masters  of  the  sonnet  in  England  have  been  the  poets 
in  whom,  as  with  Wordsworth,  the  reflective  out- 
weighed the  emotional  instinct,  or,  as  with  Shakespeare 
and  Milton,  both  lyric  and  sonnet  were  but  interludes 
in  larger  and  more  sustained  work.     In  Rossetti  again 


THE    LYRIC   SONNET  135 

we  have  a  poet  of  essentially  lyrical  genius  who,  being 
attracted  towards  the  sonnet-form  for  particular 
reasons,  set  himself  deliberately  to  alter  its  scope  and 
function,  and  forced  into  it  a  lyrical  quality  almost 
beyond  what  it  will  bear.  Such  an  attempt  in  itseli 
shows  a  certain  defect,  a  certain  want  of  sureness  and 
soundness  in  the  lyrical  instinct. 

Simonides  has  this  instinctive  certainty.  The  im- 
portance which  he  gave  to  the  epigram  is  just  what 
was  exactly  right  at  a  time  when  a  change  was  coming 
over  the  genius  of  the  lyric.  It  was  becoming  quieter, 
more  reflective,  tending  more  towards  composition  and 
balance.  If  these  new  qualities  were  to  gain  a  little 
more  preponderance,  the  emotional  impulse  that  gave 
it  life  would  flag;  it  would  slacken  or  stiffen.  The 
secret  of  an  earlier  age  was  already  lost ;  the  white-hot 
precision,  the  passionate  lucidity  of  Sappho  was  a  thing 
past  and  irrecoverable.  But  the  Simonidean  epigram, 
in  its  brevity  and  high  simplicity,  was  the  instinctive 
recoil  of  poetry  from  a  counter-movement  of  the  lyric 
towards  diffuseness,  magniloquence,  or  sentimentality. 

One  of  the  best  epigrams  of  Simonides  is  as  straight- 
forward and  as  unadorned  as  one  of  the  great  stanzas 
of  Sappho.  If  we  ask  which  is  the  greater  achieve- 
ment, the  answer  is  that  there  is  no  answer,  that  they 
are  not  comparable,  because  no  common  measure  can 
be  applied  to  them.  Each  is  in  its  kind  perfect.  One 
point  I  may  just  notice  which  is  common  to  both 
poets:  it  is  this,  that  they  have  ornament  of  the 
utmost  richness  and  splendour  at  their  disposal  and 
control,  and   that   the   sparing  use   they  make  of  it 


136  THE   LYRIC    POETS 

is  a  matter  of  deliberate  choice  and  judgment,  or,  if 
we  prefer  to  say  so,  a  matter  of  unerring  instinct. 
Some  of  the  lighter,  more  fanciful  fragments  of 
Sappho  are  as  thick-strung  with  glittering,  ringing 
ornament  as  a  fragment  of  Pindar;  when  she  is 
writing  straight  from  the  heart  there  is  hardly  an 
epithet  or  a  figure :  ttoXv  TraKTiSog  aSv^eXea-repa,  -^va-co 
Xpva-orepa,  "  far  sweeter-sounding  than  the  harp,  more 
gold  than  gold,"  she  never  thinks  of  gilding  her  gold  or 
making  music  for  her  music.  And  so  it  is  analogously 
with  the  very  different  art  of  Simonides.  In  those 
epigrams  which  are  at  a  lower  tension  the  ornament 
is  rich  and  even  splendid.  Take  his  lines  on  a  dead 
Thessalian  hound,  where,  whether  to  please  some 
wealthy  sportsman  or  from  a  touch  of  his  own  tender- 
ness reaching  towards  a  four-footed  creature  he  may 
have  loved,  he  bent  his  august  style  to  a  slight 
subject — 

^H  (rev  Koi.  (pOt/nei^ag  XevK  oarrea  twS'  ev)  tv/ul/Bo) 
'IcTKw  €TL  Tpojmeeiv  Orjpag,  aypcoa-TL  Ai/m?  * 

rav  S*  apeTOLv  otSev  jjieya  Hrjkiov^  a  t  aplStjXo9 
'OcTo-a,  J^iOaipcovog  t  oiovojulol  cTKOiriaL 

"  Surely  even  as  thou  liest  dead  in  this  tomb  I  deem 
the  wild  beasts  yet  tremble  at  thy  white  bones,  O 
huntress  Lycas;  and  thy  virtue  vast  Pelion  knows, 
and  splendid  Ossa  and  the  lonely  peaks  of  Cithaeron." 
The  pomp  of  names  and  splendour  of  epithet  are 
almost  like  Pindar.  But  when  he  is  dealing  with  a 
subject  that  moves  him  most  profoundly,  with  a 
great    heroism    or   with    the    majesty   of    death,    the 


THE  VOICE    OF   NATURE  137 

ornament  disappears;  the  language  becomes  simple, 
severe,  almost  bare. 

"Q  ^€ii/  ayyeikov  A-aKeSaifjiovloig  on  T^Se 
KeijUieOa  roig  Kelvcov  pijfjLaa-L  ireiOo/nevoi. 

"  0  stranger,  tell  the  Lacedaemonians  that  we  lie  here 
obeying  their  orders." 

J^prjg  yeveav  IBpora-^^^og  Voprvviog  ivOdSe  Keijuai 
ov  Kara  tout   eXOciop,  aWa  KaT   ejuLTTopiav, 

"I,  Brotachus  of  Gortyna,  a  Cretan,  lie  here,  not 
having  come  hither  for  this,  but  for  merchandise." 
Prose  could  not  be  simpler,  quieter,  more  precise. 
We  seem  to  hear  nature  herself  speaking,  as  one 
who  does  not  need  to  raise  her  voice. 

This  perfect  taste  and  certainty  in  the  use  of 
language  would  no  doubt  be  sufficient,  in  an  age 
when  language  was  almost  worshipped,  to  give 
Simonides  the  reputation  he  had  not  only  of  a 
great  poet,  but  of  a  great  sage.  His  casual  talk 
seems  to  have  been  treasured:  there  were  collec- 
tions of  his  apophthegms :  if  we  may  think  of  him 
as  in  some  ways  like  a  Greek  Wordsworth,  we 
might  in  this  view  rather  call  him  a  Greek  Goethe. 
It  is  curious  that  against  him  as  against  Goethe 
and  Wordsworth  the  charge  of  worldliness  and  sel- 
fishness was  made,  as  it  has  been  made  rightly  or 
wrongly  against  others  in  whom  sanity  was  no  less 
conspicuous  than  genius.  Some  sort  of  contrast  or 
discrepancy  seems  to  be  felt  between  their  tranquil 
and  successful  life  and  the  lofty  idealism  of  their 
art.     Simonides  got  the  reputation,  like  Wordsworth, 


138  THE   LYRIC   POETS 

of  having  a  keen  eye  on  the  main  chance,  and, 
like  Goethe,  of  loving  ease  and  wealth  and  rank 
overmuch.  He  was  accused  of  flattering  his  rich, 
high-born  patrons,  and  of  writing  for  money.  He 
was  the  first  poet,  it  is  said,  "  to  write  for  hire." 
Whatever  that  means,  and  however  it  is  meant  to 
discriminate  his  practice  from  that  of  the  epic 
minstrels  or  of  his  own  lyric  predecessors,  it  prob- 
ably only  amounts  to  this,  that  among  his  other 
qualities  he  was  an  excellent  man  of  business,  and 
ordered  his  life  prudently  and  successfully.  In  a 
dubious  as  well  as  in  a  transcendental  sense  of  the 
words,  a  man  of  this  type  of  genius  may  overcome 
the  world.  Perhaps  in  some  of  his  lyrics,  as  in 
those  of  Goethe,  there  is  just  a  suspicion  of  this 
worldly  strain  in  the  poet's  temperament.  Perfect 
in  grace  and  accomplishment,  thoughtful,  melodious, 
dignified,  they  have  a  sort  of  reserve,  like  that  of  a 
wealthy  man  who  does  care  how  he  gives,  and  who 
does  not  forget  himself  even  for  the  love  of  his  art.  In 
any  case,  he  and  Pindar  are  both  among  the  immortals. 
But  amongst  the  poets  at  the  brilliant  court  of 
Syracuse  there  were  not  two  immortals,  but  three : 
and  the  third  was  the  greatest.  TaSelpwv  to  irpog 
^6(pov  ov  ireparov^  "westward  beyond  Cadiz  no  man 
may  pass,"  Pindar  had  said,  in  his  haughty  claim  to 
have  consummated  the  lyric.  Already  when  these 
words  were  written  Athens  had  heard  a  new  thunder 
as  of  the  whole  Atlantic.  The  Aeschylean  drama 
swept  the  lyric  into  the  tide  of  a  vaster  movement. 
*'  The  harp-strings  have  begun  to  cry  out  to  the  eagles." 


SOPHOCLES 


The  note  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ  is  that 
throughout  it  Athens  is  Greece.  PoHtically,  from  the 
Persian  wars  onwards,  Greek  history  is  in  this  period 
the  history  of  Athens  and  the  Athenian  empire. 
Athens  is  the  focus  upon  which  the  whole  movement 
of  the  Greek  world  converges,  or  from  which  it  radiates 
The  history  and  politics  of  all  the  other  states  of  the 
Hellenic  world  can  be  mainly  expressed  in  terms  of 
their  relations  to  Athens,  whether  of  sympathy,  or  of 
antagonism  and  reaction. 

So  it  is  also  in  poetry.  The  poetic  movement,  so 
widely  diffused  in  the  lyric  age  of  the  seventh  and 
sixth  centuries,  concentrates  and  fines  down.  Athens 
had  already,  in  some  way  which  for  want  of  detailed 
evidence  we  cannot  clearly  explain,  got  hold  of  the 
epic ;  so  much  is  the  effective  meaning  of  that  move- 
ment in  the  history  of  the  Homeric  poems  which  is 
described  or  symbolised  under  the  name  of  the 
Peisistratean  recension.  Whatever  it  was,  it  made 
Athens  the  Panionion,  and  even  more  than  that,  the 
Panhellenion  of  poetry.  About  a  generation  later,  as 
part  of  the  same  movement,  towards  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,  lyric  poetry  had  also  converged  on 
Athens.  Simonides  of  Ceos  is  still  one  of  the  island 
poets,  but  not  in  the  same  sense  as  his  predecessors, 
the  schools  of  Lesbos  or  Teos,  or  that  which  gathered 

141 


142  SOPHOCLES 

round  the  Samian  court  of  Polycrates.  He  became,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  an  Athenian  poet.  The 
islands  themselves  had  before  his  death  become  part 
of  the  Athenian  empire.  Pindar  left  no  successor  in 
poetry  at  Thebes.  Sparta,  once  the  home  of  a  poetry 
unsurpassed  in  purity  and  delicacy,  had  fallen  dumb ; 
that  unwalled  city,  from  which  no  woman  had  ever 
seen  the  smoke  of  an  enemy's,  camp-fire,  was  cut  oflf 
by  impenetrable  barriers  from  movements  of  the 
spirit.  Even  Sicily  was  swept  into  the  great  movement 
of  unification,  and  the  Greater  Greece  beyond  the 
seas  became  intellectually  a  suburb  of  Athens.  "  His 
country  was  the  Hellas  of  Hellas,  Athens,"  is  the 
phrase,  no  less  true  than  pointed,  used  in  the  famous 
epitaph  on  Euripides. 

Athens  was  Greece,  and  Attic  poetry  was  the  drama. 
Almost  at  the  same  time  when  the  ancient  stock  of 
the  epic  put  forth  a  last  shoot  in  the  Heracleid  written 
by  the  uncle  of  Herodotus,  almost  at  the  same  time 
when  the  lyric  reached  its  last  development  in  the 
hands  of  Pindar  and  Simonides,  the  new  dramatic 
poetry,  the  specific  creation  of  Athens,  was  winning  its 
first  triumphs  in  the  work  of  Chionides  and  Phrynichus. 
It  came  to  conquer.  There  is  no  poet  even  of  the 
second  rank,  except  the  dramatists,  for  the  rest  of  the 
period  of  the  ascendancy  of  Athens,  after  the  roll  of 
the  lyrists  closes  with  Bacchylides.  Throughout  the 
fifth  century  we  may  observe  a  double  process  going 
on;  an  expansion  of  the  range,  scope,  and  power  of 
the  drama,  side  by  side  with  a  contraction  of  the  art 
and  methods  of  poetry  in  general.    The  drama  annexed 


ATHENS  AND  THE  DRAMA    143 

poetry.  Poetry  was  absorbed  in  the  drama.  Both 
tendencies  went  on  accumulating.  Both  were  functions 
of  the  central  Hellenic  instinct,  the  instinct  which 
fulfilled  itself  wholly  in  Athens  of  the  fifth  century  for 
the  first  and  last  time  in  human  history.  It  cul- 
minated in  Periclean  Athens,  and  then  flickered,  flared, 
and  collapsed.  But  by  that  time  it  had  wrought 
itself  indelibly  into  the  Greek  consciousness.  Even  in 
its  actual  ruin  it  remained  a  dominant  and  tyrannous 
ideal.  Neither  with  it  nor  without  it  was  life  endur- 
able. It  essayed  and  all  but  effected  impossibilities : 
and  when  it  collapsed,  it  left  life  empty.  Athens 
survived,  a  ghost  of  herself;  there  was  even  a  phan- 
tom of  a  second  Athenian  empire.  But  the  angel  of 
Athens  was  a  watcher  by  an  empty  tomb.  Life  and 
poetry  had  passed  on,  to  transmute  themselves,  to 
prepare  for  fresh  incarnations.  No  great  new  force 
arises  in  history  until  Philip  and  Alexander.  No 
great  new  movement  arises  in  poetry  until  the  Alex- 
andrians. 

Attic  poetry  is  the  drama ;  and  the  Attic  drama  is 
Sophocles :  for  Sophocles  is  the  single  poet  wh6 
embodies  centrally  and  completely  the  spirit  of  Athens. 
Aeschylus  may  be  a  greater  poet,  if  among  poets  of 
the  first  rank  one  may  speak  of  greater  and  less, 
classifying  the  immortals  and  assigning  places  in  the 
Olympian  hierarchy.  But  he  was  more  than  Athenian  ; 
he  was  more  than  Greek.  Euripides,  an  inferior  artist, 
was  a  more  potent  and  mordant  intellect,  a  greater 
influence  over  life  and  letters.  But  in  him  the 
Athenian  genius  was  transforming  itself  and  preparing 


144  SOPHOCLES 

a  new  world;  it  is  not  without  curious  significance 
that  he  died  in  Macedonia.  In  Sophocles,  and  in  him 
alone,  we  have  Athenian  poetry  in  its  full  expression, 
neither  less  nor  more.  He  did  in  poetry  what  Athens 
of  the  fifth  century  tried  to  do  in  the  whole  field  of 
life ;  and  he  did  it  so  perfectly  that  he  eludes  all  but 
the  finest  and  most  sensitive  criticism,  and  remains  to 
us  something  almost  intangible  and  impersonal. 

Athenian  art  is  Greek  art  at  its  central  point  and 
highest  power.  Homer  is  pre-Hellenic ;  he  is  the 
inheritance  which  Hellas  received  from  a  great 
mediaeval  past,  and  which  moulded  the  whole  of 
Greek  poetry,  as  he  was  himself  moulded  subtly  and 
yet  vitally  by  the  Greek  spirit  into  something  almost 
Greek.  Passed  through  the  Greek  mind,  the  Homeric 
poems  become  insensibly,  almost  unconsciously,  Hel- 
lenised.  The  lyric  poets  of  the  seventh  and  sixth 
centuries  are  Greek  poetry  in  the  making,  in  the 
splendori  antelucani,  the  radiance  and  flushings  of  dawn. 
Now  the  sun  was  fully  risen;  and  a  mature  art  set 
itself,  in  the  clear  daylight,  to  express,  embody,  and 
interpret  life. 

This  central  Greek  art  of  Athens,  as  we  see  it  in  the 
work  of  Pheidias  or  Ictinus  or  Sophocles,  is  something 
beyond  all  example  clear,  pure,  and  refined.  It  was 
the  product  of  extraordinarily  acute  senses  and  won- 
derfully trained  intelligence.  To  senses  less  acute,  or 
to  an  intelligence  less  trained,  it  seems  almost  abstract, 
as  though  it  were  on  the  point  of  becoming  disem- 
bodied. It  has  the  thinness,  one  might  say  the  dry- 
ness   and    rarefied    quality,  of   the    Attic   air.       The 


THE   ART   OF   ATHENS  145 

architecture  and  sculpture  of  that  period  are  incredibly 
fine,  and  curiously  reserved.  They  reach  the  utmost 
limits  in  subtlety  of  composition,  purity  of  line,  and 
delicacy  of  modelling.  That  art  was  content  with 
nothing  short  of  the  highest  achievement  in  the  most 
dijSicult  manner.  To  attain  that  end,  it  rejects  or 
dispenses  with  anything  that  might  hinder  it.  Its 
embodiment  of  life  is  so  nearly  abstract  that  any 
failure  means  complete  failure  ;  it  stakes  everything  on 
this  one  cast.  We  may  see  this  most  clearly  perhaps 
by  studying  the  metopes  of  the  Parthenon.  In  them  we 
have  the  artist  trying  a  subject  over  and  over  again  in 
order  to  disengage  an  ideal,  to  get  closer  to  some  sort 
of  quintessential  expression.  They  do  not  always 
succeed;  some,  those  perhaps  in  which  there  is  not 
the  authentic  touch  of  Pheidias,  are  failures ;  but  even 
in  these  the  attempt  was  the  same. 

This  also  is  the  art  of  Sophocles :  fine  to  the  verge 
of  thinnes§,  precise  to.  the  verge  of  hardness ;  inimi- 
table, impeccable,  unpopular.  It  does  not  appeal  to 
sentiment.  In  the  ordinary  mind  it  rouses  admiration 
rather  than  enthusiasm.  Even  among  trained  critics 
the  admiration  is  reluctant  and  qualified.  "  There  are 
few  people,"  it  has  been  recently  said,  I  know  not 
with  what  truth,  "  who  make  Sophocles  their  favourite." 
But  this  is  not  all.  Professor  Murray  finds  in  him 
"  a  bluntness  of  moral  imagination,"  and  "  a  conven- 
tional idealism."  "  Sophocles  is  the  one  Greek  writer," 
he  says  elsewhere,  "  who  is  classical  in  the  vulgar 
sense." 

Statements  like  this  give  one  pause.     Clearly  there 


146  SOPHOCLES 

must  be  some  sort  of  basis  for  them,  or  they  could 
not  be  made  by  responsible  authorities.  But  what  is 
their  basis  ?  what  do  they  mean  ?  They  mean  this  at 
least,  though  this  does  not  exhaust  their  significance : 
that  Athenian  art,  like  the  whole  Athenian  life  of 
which  it  was  the  pattern  and  expression,  creates  a 
reaction.  The  Athenian  empire  in  poetry,  as  in 
politics,  had  the  effect  of  exciting,  in  those  who  lived 
with  it  or  under  it,  a  strange  mixture  of  fascination 
and  hatred. 

All  we  have  wandered  from  thy  ways,  have  hidden 
Eyes  from  thy  glory  and  ears  from  calls  they  heard  ; 

Called  of  thy  trumpets  vainly,  called  and  chidden, 
Scourged  of  thy  speech  and  wounded  of  thy  word. 

We  have  known  thee  and  have  not  known  thee  ;  stood  beside 
thee, 

Felt  thy  lips  breathe,  set  foot  where  thy  feet  trod. 
Loved  and  renounced  and  worshipped  and  denied  thee, 

As  though  thou  wert  but  as  another  God. 

All  great  art  creates  this  reaction  sooner  or  later. 
The  attempt  to  include  life,  to  express  it  wholly 
and  essentially,  becomes  an  attempt  to  limit  life ; 
and  life  will  not  be  limited.  This  is  the  ultimate 
failure  of  all  ideals,  in  art  as  in  politics.  They  try  to 
fix  something  which  moves,  which  lives  by  moving. 
The  progress  of  life  bursts  them,  or  moves  away  from 
them  and  leaves  them  empty.  Even  if  there  be  such 
a  thing  as  perfection — and  the  Athenian  genius  aimed 
at  nothing  less  than  perfection — there  is  no  finality. 
But  such  an  art  sets  a  mark  for  all  future  art.  Poetry 
has  for  all  time  to  be  judged,  one  might  say,  by  an 
Athenian  standard,  as  life  itself  has  to  be  judged  by 


THE    SOPHOCLEAN   GENIUS         147 

Athenian  ideals.     This  is  the  gift  which  Athens  has 
given,  the  task  which  Athens  has  set,  to  the  world. 

Let  us  try  then  to  consider  Sophocles  as  a  poet, 
and  to  indicate  the  quality  of  his  poetry.  This,  like 
the  quality  of  the  Athenian  genius  itself,  almost  eludes 
definition.  In  writing  about  Sophocles,  critics  are 
perpetually  evading  the  point,  or  it  might  be  more 
accurate  to  say  that  the  point  is  perpetually  evading 
them.  They  slide  off  into  discussions  of  his  verbal 
technique,  the  remarkable  way  in  which  he  brings  the 
vocabulary  and  structure  of  his  poetry  close  alongside 
of  prose;  or  of  his  stage-craft,  the  adroit  mechanism  of 
his  drama;  or  still  oftener,  of  his  ethics  and  theology. 
But  these  are  not  his  poetry ;  and  it  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  keep  the  eye  steady  on  the  poetry. 

The  life  of  Sophocles  (495  to  406  B.C.)  just  fills  the 
century  of  the  ascendancy  of  Athens.  He  outlived 
Aeschylus  by  fifty  years.  As  a  boy  he  led  a  chorus 
after  Salamis ;  he  died  in  extreme  old  age,  a  few 
months  after  Euripides,  and  just  before  the  final 
collapse  of  Athens.  His  production,  like  that  of 
Tennyson,  extends  over  more  than  sixty  years,  and  up 
to  the  end  it  was  of  unimpaired  suavity  and  power. 
He  retained  beyond  the  age  of  Michael  Angelo  the 
accomplishment  of  Raffaele. 

The  seven  plays  we  possess  all  belong  to  the  latter 
part  of  his  life.  The  Antigone  is  not  later  than  441 
B.C. ;  the  Philodetes  was  produced  in  409  ;  the  Oedipus 
at  Colonus,  presumably  his  last  work,  was  only  published 
some  years  after  his  death.  The  other  four  plays  may 
be  placed  with  reasonable  certainty  between  the  Anti^ 


148  SOPHOCLES 

gone  and  the  Philoctetes.  Over  all  the  seven  plays 
there  is  little  poetical  difference,  little  change  of  style 
and  method.  The  vocabulary  is  substantially  the 
same ;  so  is  the  versification.  His  work  shares  the 
general  extension  of  dramatic  method  which  was 
going  on  throughout  his  life,  and  of  which  he  is  named 
as  in  certain  definite  matters  one  of  the  innovators  or 
pioneers.  In  the  two  latest  plays  there  is  a  more 
complex  or  episodic  dramatic  treatment.  There  is 
also  a  new  metrical  treatment  of  the  lyrics,  attribut- 
able, it  would  seem,  to  some  contemporary  change  in 
the  art  of  music.  The  chorus  in  the  Philoctetes  is  on 
its  way  to  becoming  an  atrophied  organ  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  drama,  and  is  almost  negligible.  But 
these  and  similar  points,  though  interesting,  are  super- 
ficial ;  they  hardly  touch  the  quality  of  his  work  as 
poetry:  and  that  quality  is  in  its  main  essence 
uniform.  This  is  so,  whether  we  regard  it  primarily 
on  its  formal  side  as  art,  or  with  regard  to  the  inter- 
pretation and  embodiment  of  life  which  it  conveys. 

The  poetry  of  Sophocles  on  its  formal  side  is  most 
easily  though  not  most  accurately  described  by  nega- 
tives. It  has  not  salient  points ;  a  poetical  manner 
has  seldom  if  ever  been  so  free  from  anything  that 
can  be  called  mannerism.  It  is  like  that  of  Horace  in 
what  we  might  almost  describe  as  an  impersonal  or 
abstract  quality.  It  does  not  depend  for  its  effects  on 
massed  light  and  shade.  It  has  little  of  the  chromatic 
quality  which  is  needed  to  stir  the  more  sluggish  or 
more  worn  senses.  It  does  not  deal  in  mystery  as 
a   background  or  contrast ;  its  mystery  is  in  its  own 


THE   SOPHOCLEAN   STYLE  149 

essence  and  texture.  Ornament  in  it  is  reduced  to 
the  lowest  dimensions;  for  the  lines  and  planes  ot 
the  composition  are  the  ornament.  In  all  the  seven 
plays  there  are  only  some  half-dozen  formal  similes ; 
and  even  these  are  brief,  subdued,  not  enriched  and 
heightened  for  their  own  s,ake.  Language  produces 
its  effects  by  reserve.  One  of  the  rare  instances  in 
which  Sophocles  has  allowed  himself  to  embroider 
and  enrich  language  for  its  own  sake  is  worth  citing, 
to  show  what  an  immense  and  masterful  reserve  his 
was,  and  what  an-  effect  he  can  produce  by  the  least 
deflection  from  it,  the  least  concession  to  romantic  or 
ornamental  treatment.  "  In  this  cool,  pearl-grey,  quiet 
place,"  as  Pater  says  of  the  Ansidei  Raffaele,  "  colour 
tells  for  double."  The  passage  I  mean  is  in  the 
famous  ode  on  Athens,  the  first  stasimon  in  the  Oedipus 
at  Colomos.  The  first  ten  lines  of  this  ode  are  per- 
haps the  best  known,  the  most  popular  passage  in  the 
whole  of  Sophocles.  The  love  of  his  own  birthplace, 
the  just  perceptible  relaxation  of  treatment  which  is 
noticeable  in  this  latest  of  his  plays,  a  touch  of 
romance  that  seems  to  enter  and  suffuse  the  almost 
colourless  transparency  of  his  style,  combine  to  make 
the  passage  remarkable,  and  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  ordinary  Sophoclean  manner.  Yet  even  here  how 
sparing  is  the  colour,  how  light  and  pure  the  ornament ! 
The  passage  is  suggested  by,  and  bears  distinct  refer- 
ence to,  the  equally  famous  passage  in  the  nineteenth 
book  of  the  Odyssey,  which  I  have  already  cited  as 
the  crucial  instance  of  epic  passing  beyond  itself, 
reaching    outwards    to    become    lyric.       From    that 


150  SOPHOCLES 

passage  of  rich,  crowded,  intricate  and  delicate  orna- 
ment Sophocles  has  taken  two  or  three  phrases,  as 
if  to  emphasise  and  acknowledge  the  relation,  and 
reset  them  "  like  stones  of  worth  that  thinly  placM 
are  "  in  his  own  ode.  It  is  a  notable  instance  of  his 
pre-eminent  sense  of  language,  a  sense  that  makes 
him  deal  with  language  as  a  thing  too  precious  to 
waste.  Just  this  keen,  exquisite  sense  of  language, 
of  the  potency  and  inexhaustible  significance  of  the 
word,  is  always  present  with  him.  In  the  Oedipus  at 
Colonus  the  power  of  the  word — "the  little  word," 
a-jULiKpog  \6yog — is  a  recurrent  note.  Language,  to  one 
who  had  been  working  in  it  with  exquisite  truth  and 
delicacy  for  half  a  century,  has  become  something 
awful.  Oedipus  traces  his  exile  and  misery  to  a 
little  word.  A  little  word  pledges  Theseus  and  the 
whole  power  of  Athens.  In  the  most  splendid  speech 
of  the  play,  that  of  Oedipus  on  the  triumph  of 
Time,  the  little  word  once  more  is  the  power  which 
shatters  alliances  and  brings  kingdoms  to  ruin. 

This  speech  of  Oedipus  (11.  607-620)  is  one  of  those 
passages  in  Sophocles  which  can  be  best  commented 
on  by  saying  that  they  are  characteristically  and  es- 
.  sentially  Shakespearian.  There  is  no  third  writer,  I 
think,  who  has  ever  written  in  just  this  manner.  One 
can  hardly  speak  of  their  style ;  they  are  beyond  style. 
Language  in  them  has  become  transfigured.  One 
hardly  notices  the  words;  they  have  become  trans- 
lucent ;  it  seems  as  if  the  poet  who  could  do  these 
things  with  these  words  could  do  anything  with  any 
words.     Such  power  over  language,  or  such  insight 


THE   POWEIi   OF   THE   WORD        15l 

into  language,  only  comes  once  in  the  history  of  any 
single  race.  Many  of  the  single  lines  and  phrases 
in  Sophocles  have  this  intense  and  poignant  quality. 
They  do  not  come  much  in  set  speeches ;  they  are  not 
led  up  to  ;  no  special  stress  is  laid  on  them.  They  just 
happen;  and  each  time  what  happens  is  a  miracle. 
In  the 

irarep,  iriBov  jnoi,  kcl  vea  irapaivecru) 
of  Antigone ;  or  in  the 

ft)?  w^e  Tou^'  e-^ovTO'i  alaYeiv  irapa 
of  Tecmessa ;  or  in  the  words  of  Hyllus, 

/UL€TaLTio?  CTOL  t'  au^f?  ft)?  c^ef?  eyeiv^ 
the  language  is  so  simple,  so  apparently  unconscious 
and  artless,  that  its  overwhelming  effect  makes  one 
gasp :  it  is  like  hearing  human  language  uttered,  and 
raised  to  a  new  and  incredible  power,  by  the  lips  of 
some  one  more  than  human.  It  is  the  speech  of  one 
who  may  speak  softly,  and  need  not  raise  his  voice  to 
make  it  heard  clear  through  any  storm  of  sound.  It 
is  so  in  Shakespeare  likewise ;  in  the  strangely  thrill- 
ing phrases  of  simple  words  in  simple  order,  but 
reaching  without  effort  the  highest  heights  of  poetry. 
There  is  this  note,  common  to  Sophocles  and  Shake- 
speare, and  beyond  them  perhaps  unknown,  unless  it 
may  be  shared  by  Dante,  in  Macduff's 

1  cannot  but  remember  such  things  were  ; 

or  in  Edgar's 

Men  must  endure 
Their  going  hence,  even  as  their  coming  hither  ; 

or  in  Imogen  s 

I  hope  I  dream. 


152  SOPHOCLES 

Thus,  too,  not  only  the  phrases  but  the  single  words 
in  Sophocles  have  to  be  gazed  into,  pored  over,  held 
long  in  solution,  before  they  will  yield  their  full  mean- 
ing. The  whole  problem  and  lesson  of  the  Antigone 
-may  be  said  to  lie  in  the  conflict,  only  stated  or  hinted 
in  the  variation  of  a  single  term,  between  the  a^ovXla 
of  Antigone  and  the  Svcr/BovXla  of  Creon  ;  the  difference 
has  not  been  more  finely  or  more  completely  put  by 
all  that  his  expounders  have  embroidered  upon  it. 
In  that  same  play  the  tragic  view  of  the  part  played 
by  love  in  human  life  is  embodied  in  a  single  epithet, 
"  light-minded,"  airdra  Kovcpovocov  cpoorwv — repeated,  at 
an  interval  of  nearly  three  hundred  lines,  from  the 
majestic  Ode  on  Man,  where  it  is  said  of  him  that 
among  his  marvellous  achievements,  Kov(pov6wv  (pvXov 
opvlOoov  ajUL(j)iPaX(jov  ayei  koi  Orjpwv  aypicov  eQvrj.  For 
the  full  appreciation  of  what  is  implied  one  should 
also  bear  in  mind  the  reference  to  love  as  an  aypiog 
SeanroTrjg  in  the  saying  of  Sophocles  quoted  by  Plato 
in  the  opening  scene  of  the  Republic.  These  are  only 
a  couple  of  instances  taken  at  random  out  of  hundreds. 

With  this  exquisite  sense  of  the  power  and  strange- 
ness of  language  is  connected  another  feature  in  the 
art  of  Sophocles,  that  of  using  the  same  words  to  mean 
many  different  things.  He  always  deals  with  language 
"as  something  complex  and  organic,  like  life ;  the  "  little 
word  "  has  many  meanings.  It  means  different  things 
in  the  mouth  of  each  one  who  uses  it,  and  to  the 
apprehension  of  each  one  who  hears  it.  It  is  no  mere 
token  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  but  a  live  element, 
almost  itself  a  person.     This  is  what  lies  at  the  founda- 


THE   SOPHOCLEAN   IRONY  153 

tion  of  the  celebrated  Sophoclean  irony.  The  word 
spoken  is  more  than  the  expression  of  the  speaker's 
meaning.  He  made  it,  but  once  made,  it  is  a  living 
thing,  carrying  in  it,  it  may  be,  the  issues  of  life  and 
death.  This  so-called  irony  in  Sophocles  is  unfathomable. 
One  of  the  most  wonderful  instances  of  it  is  in  the  scene 
of  the  ii^/ec^ra  where  Clytemnestra  and  Electra  have  just 
heard  from  the  Paidagogos  the  account  of  the  death 
of  Orestes:  a  scene  remarkable  among  other  things 
for  making  Clytemnestra  use  more  than  one  phrase 
which  is  almost  verbally  repeated  by  Shakespeare's 
Macbeth.  Not  a  word  that  any  one  of  the  three  says 
but  means  something  different  to  the  speaker,  to  each 
of  the  two  hearers,  and  to  us.  For  dramatic  com- 
plexity and  compression  this  scene  is  all  but 
unequalled.  One  feels  as  though  in  an  electric  storm, 
played  about  by  a  hundred  lightnings.  And  it  is  all 
done  without  what  is  called  action,  by  the  yet  more 
potent  and  yet  more  living  energy  of  the  word. 

Or  take  another  instance  of  a  different  kind,  going 
beyond  the  scope  of  what  is  ordinarily  called  tragic 
irony,  as  it  also  goes  beyond  the  bounds  of  a  single 
drama.  There  is  no  more  striking  instance  of  the 
sense  in  Sophocles  of  language  as  something  which 
is  alive  and  always  re -embodying  itself  than  the 
speech  of  the  guard  to  Creon  in  the  Antigone,^  the 
one  beginning 

ava^j  PpoToidLv  ovSev  ecrr   olttco/ulotov. 

The  earlier  scene  between  the  two  is  one  of  the  rare 
incursions    made   by    Sophocles    into    the    sphere    of 

1  1.  388  foil. 


154  SOPHOCLES 

comedy.  The  ponderous,  Dogberry-like  wit  with 
which  the  guard  began  had  dropped,  when  he  became 
thoroughly  frightened,  into  a  vernacular  babble.  Here 
he  reappears,  quit  of  his  terror  and  in  high  spirits ; 
and  his  reflections  now  are  a  travesty,  so  true  to  life 
that  it  makes  one  feel  sick,  of  the  great  speech  of 
Aias — 

aTravO'  6  jmaKpo^  KavaplOiiirjTog  yj)ovo<s 
(pvei  T  aSrjXa  koI  (pavevra  KpvirreTai^ 
KOVK  ear*  aeXirrov  ovSiv,  aXX'  oKla-Kerai 
yu)  ScLvog  opK09  Koi  irepicTKeXeig  (ppeveg. 

All  strangest  things  the  multitudinous  years 
Bring  forth,  and  shadow  from  us  all  we  know. 
Falter  alike  great  oath  and  steeled  resolve. 
And  none  shall  say  of  aught '  This  may  not  be.'  ^ 

These  are  but  brief  suggestions  of  what  might  be 
indefinitely  expanded.  Let  us  pass  now  to  the  other 
side  of  poetry,  and  look,  even  more  summarily,  on  the 
poetry  of  Sophocles  as  an  embodiment  and  inter- 
pretation of  life.  It  is  here  that  we  must  weigh 
and  must,  I  think,  wholly  dissent  from  the  phrases 
"  conventional  idealism "  and  "  bluntness  of  moral 
imagination." 

The  envisagement  of  life  which  underlies  the 
Sophoclean  drama  is  given  most  sharply  in  the  morals 
— so  we  may  call  them,  though  the  word  must  not 
be  taken  in  too  narrow  a  meaning — which  Sophocles 
himself  has  attached  to  or  incorporated  in  five  out 
of  the  seven  plays.  The  final  note  in  Oedipus  the  King 
is   "  Human   life,   even  in    its    utmost    strength  and 

^  Aias,  646  foil.    The  translation  is  Calverlej's. 


THE   ENVISAGEMENT   OF   LIFE      155 

splendour,  hangs  on  the  edge  of  an  abyss."  In  the 
Oedipus  at  Colonus  it  is  "  Let  lamentation  be  brief,  for 
what  has  happened  was  ordained."  In  the  Antigone 
it  is  "  Lack  of  wisdom  (*  unrede/  a^ovXla)  is  the 
greatest  of  evils."  In  the  Aias  it  goes  still  deeper ; 
it  is  the  necessity  of  tragedy  for  the  purpose  of  life ;  " 
men  must  see,  must  have  actual  experience,  in  order 
to  know.  Finally,  in  the  Trachinians  it  takes  shape  in 
what  is  the  ultimate  and  central  message  of  Sophocles, 
his  last  word  on  life,  "  Look,  and  wonder,  and  think." 

The  endless  wonderfulness  of  life — its  splendour 
and  fascination  and  unfathomable  depth  of  meaning ; 
this  is  what  Sophocles  gives  us.  It  is  neither  ethics 
nor  theology;  it  is  something  which,  if  we  can  but 
realise  it,  is  larger  and  deeper.  Creeds  change ; 
systems  pass ;  this  remains.  "  Those,"  says  Shelley 
in  the  Defence  of  Poetry,  "  in  whom  the  poetical  faculty, 
though  great,  is  less  intense,  as  Euripides,  have  fre- 
quently affected  a  moral  aim,  and  the  effect  of  their 
poetry  is  diminished  in  exact  proportion."  Aeschylus 
had  justified  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  and  vindicated 
law.  Euripides,  finding  neither  God  nor  law,  but  only 
burning  instincts  on  the  one  hand  and  destructive 
thought  on  the  other,  launches  out  into  a  restless 
search  that  has  no  starting-point  and  no  goal. 
Sophocles  does  not  affect  to  explain  life;  he  hardly 
criticises  it.  He  shows  things  happening  and  how 
they  happen,  but  not  why.  If  he  accepts  conventions, 
it  is  because  they  are  actual  facts;  they  exist,  and 
are  among  the  motive  forces  of  the  world.  If  he 
seems  to  lack  moral  imagination,  it  is  because  morality 


156  SOPHOCLES 

is  not  with  him  a  separate  thing,  with  boundaries  at 
which  imagination  can  stop.  Morals  and  religion  are 
to  him  neither  the  foundations  nor  the  superstruc- 
ture; they  are  elements  or  functions  of  the  one 
amazing  and  incomprehensible  thing,  the  one  thing 
that  matters,  the  one  thing  that  is, — life. 

The  clarity  of  the  thought  in  Sophocles  masks  its 
profundity,  just  as  the  clarity  of  his  language  masks 
its  poetic  quality.  We  have  to  look  long  and  steadily 
at  both  before  they  will  yield  their  secret.  Those 
pellucid  depths  seem  shallow  to  the  careless  observer ; 
that  language,  so  exquisite  and  seemingly  so  effortless, 
produces  at  first  sight  the  impression  of  being  almost 
prosaic.  He  never  seems  to  have  any  difficulty  in 
saying  what  he  means.  But  even  to  an  Athenian 
audience,  with  their  quick,  trained  intelligence,  much 
of  his  meaning  must  have  been  lost.  He  knew  this, 
and  wrote  accordingly.  This  is  the  final  touch  of  the 
Sophoclean  irony.  The  few  anecdotes  of  him  which 
have  been  preserved,  his  few  criticisms  on  his  own 
work  and  that  of  others,  reinforce  this  impression ;  in 
all  of  them  he  says  the  exact  truth  very  simply,  and 
as  though  he  did  not  take  much  pains  to  explain  or 
argue,  and;  did  not  concern  himself  much  whether 
he  was  understood  or  not.  It  is  the  accent  of  one 
thinking  aloud,  seeing  clearly  and  saying  exactly  what 
he  sees,  but  not  interpreting  or  commenting  upon  it. 
This  accent  is  remarkable,  for  instance,  in  the  words  of 
his,  already  cited,  at  the  beginning  of  Plato's  Republic, 
or    in    his  reply  to   Peisander   quoted   by  Aristotle,^ 

1  Rhetoric,  iii.  18. 


THE   SOPHOCLEAN    CLARITY        157 

giving  his  reason  for  assenting  to  the  oligarchic 
revolution  of  411  B.C.  It  is  pre-eminently  so  with 
the  most  famous  of  his  sayings,  that  quoted  by 
Aristotle  in  the  Poetics :  "  I  make  persons  as  they  should 
be  made,  Euripides  makes  them  as  they  are."  Even 
Aristotle  misses,  at  least  he  does  not  bring  out,  the  full 
significance  of  this  profound  and  many-facetted  sentence. 
What  he  meant — if  one  may  infer  his  meaning  from 
study  of  his  actual  productions — was  not  that  his 
persons  were  conventionally  idealised ;  it  was  that  they 
were  more  real  than  reality.  His  characters  express 
themselves  often,  we  may  think,  inadequately :  quite  so  ; 
that  is  because  he  creates  and  envisages  them  vitally, 
and  it  is  they  who  speak  and  act,  as  though  with  an 
independent  substantive  life  of  their  own.  Thus  it  is 
that  on  the  one  hand  what  they  say  is  often  so  close 
to  the  vocabulary  and  structure  of  everyday  Attic 
speech,  that  it  is  best  illustrated  from,  and  has  to  be 
studied  by  scholars  in  connection  with,  the  idiom  and 
language  of  contemporary  prose  authors.  Thus,  too, 
it  is  that  on  the  other  hand  it  often  seems  to  fall 
short  of  the  occasion,  and  has  given  rise  to  the  charge 
that  the  people  of  Sophocles  are  stiff  and  conventional. 
They  do  not,  like  those  of  Aeschylus,  speak  a  super- 
human language,  as 

When  a  God  gives  sign 
With  hushing  finger,  how  he  means  to  load 
His  tongue  with  the  full  weight  of  utterless  thought, 
With  thunder  and  with  music  and  with  pomp. 

They  do  not,  like  those  of  Euripides,  express  them- 
selves fully  in  that  liquid  and  flexible  speech  which 


158  SOPHOCLES 

is  the  voice  of  Euripides  and  not  theirs,  which  follows 
out  the  intricacies  of  thought  and  feeling  with  the 
skill  of  an  analyst  and  the  copiousness  of  a  trained 
rhetorician.  What  they  say  is  often  a  mere  hint  of 
what  they  think  and  feel.  The  speech  of  Tecmessa 
over  the  dead  body  of  Aias^  is  a  case  in  point. 
She  says  little,  and  what  she  says  is  in  a  low 
tone:  but  it  is  just  what  a  woman  would  say. 
Euripides  would  make  her  say  all  that  he  knew  she 
felt.  But  if  she  could  say  what  she  felt,  she  would 
not  be  Tecmessa.  The  tragic  irony  in  Sophocles  lies 
in  the  very  fact  that  she  can  express  so  little  of  what 
she  feels ;  his  unique  poetical  genius  lies  in  his  power 
of  making  us  realise  her  in  and  through  her  very 
inexpressiveness.  Dryden  says  finely  of  Virgil  that 
he  had  the  gift  of  expressing  much  in  little  and  some- 
times in  silence.  That  is  equally  true,  though  in  a 
different  way,  of  Sophocles.  One  may  apply  to  his 
work — also  with  a  difference,  for  every  great  artist 
is  himself  and  unique — what  Mr.  W.  P.  Ker  says, 
with  his  characteristic  insight  and  precision,  of  the 
Icelandic  work  of  the  best  period:  "It  belongs  to  a 
small  class  of  fine  literature,  which  begins  in  imagina- 
tion and  dramatic  sense,  and  has  been  trained  to  use 
its  imagination  sincerely.  It  is  neither  '  classical '  nor 
*  romantic,'  though  it  is  often  both.  It  is  simply  right." 
They  are  "  simply  right " — olovg  Sei — this  is  what 
one  has  to  come  back  to,  over  and  over  again,  with  the 
characters  of  Sophocles.  They  are  not  abstract  types. 
He  does  not  use  them  as  the  mouthpieces  for  the 

1  Aiaa,  961-73. 


THE   SOPHOCLEAN   PRECISION      159 

expression  of  his  own  thoughts,  or  views,  or  specula- 
tions. Nor  are  they  copies  from  actual  people — otol 
elcTLv,  Like  the  finest  Greek  sculpture,  they  move 
within  the  sphere  of  a  strict  convention ;  but  within 
and  through  that  convention  they  go  to  the  centre ; 
they  do  the  utmost  of  what  art  can  do  with  life. 

Whenever  we  feel  inclined  to  say  that  Sophocles  is 
conventional  or  inadequate  or  superficial  we  ought 
to  make  sure  that  the  fault  is  not  with  us — that  it 
does  not  lie  in  the  superficiality  of  our  own  view,  the 
inadequacy  of  our  own  appreciation,  some  facile  un- 
conventionality  of  our  own  which  is  only  a  new  kind 
of  convention.  Even  what  are  called  his  false  notes 
may  often  yield  to  more  careful  study  a  depth  of 
insight  which  we  had  not  suspected,  and  throw  fresh 
light  on  the  whole  meaning  of  the  scene  or  the  play 
in  which  they  occur.  Let  me  give  one  instance.  The 
Deianeira  of  the  Trachinians  is  by  common  consent 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  creations  of  poetry.  For 
tenderness,  delicacy,  unselfishness,  she  stands  alone  in 
the  classic,  almost  alone  even  in  the  romantic  drama. 
She  has  been  called,  not  unjustly,  the  Imogen  among 
the  women  of  antiquity.  There  must  be  few  readers 
of  the  Trachinians  who  have  not  been  disturbed, 
almost  shocked,  by  what  seems  one  false  note  put 
into  her  mouth  by  Sophocles.  When  she  has  explained 
to  the  Chorus  her  device  for  recovering  the  love  of 
Heracles,  she  begs  them  to  keep  it  hidden :  "  For  in 
the  dark,"  she  says,  "  even  if  one  does  what  is  shame- 
ful, one  will  not  fall  into  shame."  ^     It  sounds  unlike 

1  Track.  597. 


160  SOPHOCLES 

her;  it  sounds  a  sophistry,  some  clichd  of  the 
rhetoricians  such  as  inferior  dramatists  are  fond  of 
using.  It  is  really  the  keynote  to  the  whole  tragedy ; 
indicated,  according  to  the  wont  of  Sophocles,  so 
lightly  and  subtly  as  to  be  almost  invisible  unless  we 
bring  to  it  our  most  sensitive  and  most  perfectly  trained 
intelligence.  "It  would  be  a  waste  of  words," 
Professor  Campbell  says,  in  commenting  on  the  play, 
"  to  enlarge  upon  the  pathos  of  her  fate."  Yes ;  but 
her  fate  would  be  less  pathetic  than  horrible,  it  would 
be  a  piece  of  meaningless  and  purposeless  cruelty, 
were  it  not  for  this  single  momentary  light  flashed 
upon  the  inner  reality  of  the  situation.  For  she 
also,  like  Desdemona  rather  than  like  Imogen,  broke 
the  law,  and  was  broken  by  it.  There  is  another 
famous  parallel  in  our  own  literature.  Richardson's 
Clarissa  was  regarded,  by  the  whole  generation  whom 
she  melted  and  maddened,  as  an  innocent  and 
faultless  creature  dragged  to  ruin  by  incarnate  powers 
of  wickedness.  Mrs.  Thrale  has  recorded  for  us  the 
searching  and  illuminating  criticism  of  Richardson's 
greatest  admirer.  "  When  I  mentioned  Clarissa,"  she 
writes  in  her  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson^  "  as  a  perfect 
character,  '  On  the  contrary,'  said  he,  '  you  may  ob- 
serve that  there  is  always  something  which  she  prefers 
to  truth.' " 

Thus  too  in  the  Antigone,  Ismene,  the  most  fully 
and  pathetically  human  of  all  the  characters,  is  so 
lightly  and  subtly  drawn,  that  she  hardly  yields  her 
meaning  to  an  eye  that  is  not  fixed  on  her,  that  does 
not  dwell  on  her  long  enough  or  carefully  enough  to 


THE   WOMEN   OF   SOPHOCLES       161 

realise  that  she  gives  the  central  human  note  in 
relation  to  which  all  the  other  characters  group  them- 
selves. The  play  has  that  quality  of  bitterness — that 
harsh  or  austere  flavour — which  Sophocles  is  said  to 
have  noted  as  a  feature  of  his  own  art  in  its  middle 
period.  Of  Antigone  herself,  the  description  of  the 
Chorus,"  savage  child  of  a  savage  father  " — yewrjfj!  wfxou 
€^  cojULov  Traxjoo? — is  exactly  true.  The  tone  of  the  play 
is  like  that  of  a  Xing  Lear  in  which  Lear  is  dead  and 
the  Cordelia  of  the  first  act  is  the  central  figure. 
It  may  be  noted,  too,  that  just  as  in  King  Lear  an 
added  touch  of  savagery  is  given  by  the  implied 
motherlessness  of  the  king's  daughters,  so  in  the 
Antigone  there  is  hardly  a  reference  to  locasta. 
Antigone  calls  her  brother  rov  e^  ifjir}^  /uLrjTpog  (1.  467), 
and  o/mai/uLog  eV  jmiag  (1.  513).  These  phrases  hardly 
count.  The  only  other  mention  of  her  mother  is  in 
her  great  dying  speech  and  confession — 

KapT    €V  eXlTKTlV  Tp€(f)(0 

(fylXri  jmev  rj^eiv  Trarplf  7rpoa-(pi\r}^  Se  arol, 
fj-nrep. 

That  single  delicate,  piercing  touch  is  all. 

Antigone,  a  Cordelia  with  the  added  gift  of  copious 
and  powerful  speech — it  is  Ismene  whose  voice  is  ever 
low  and  brief — is  the  direct  antithesis  to  Deianeira. 
Her  hard  inflexible  truthfulness  is  free,  like  Cordelia's, 
from  selfishness,  or  at  least  from  any  but  an  intel- 
lectual self-regard,  but  it  is  without  indulgence  and 
without  pity.  The  atmosphere  of  the  play  is  given 
at  the  first  stroke  in  the  opening  scene,  under  the 

L 


162  SOPHOCLES 

hard,  shadowless  Hght  of  dawn  in  the  silent  palace- 
courtyard.  The  slight  girlish  figure  of  Ismene  gives 
the  normal  human  plane  against  which  the  others 
stand  out  like  people  of  iron.  In  her  we  can  measure 
them  on  the  scale  of  common  human  weakness,  of 
common  human  sympathy  and  generosity  and  emotion. 
After  Antigone  has  gone  out  alone  to  certain  death, 
Ismene  is  seen  in  the  palace,  mad  with  grief  and 
terror.  When  sent  for,  she  arrives  with  her  face 
flushed  and  swollen,  still  in  a  passion  of  tears.  She 
is  loving,  helpless,  almost  inarticulate,  until,  at  a  line 
of  deliberate  insult  flung  at  Antigone  by  Creon,  she 
breaks  out  into  one  great  cry  of  love  and  indignation, 
and  then  disappears  out  of  the  action  that  goes  rush- 
ing on  to  its  doom. 

I  have  mentioned  the  mise-en-scene  at  the  opening  of 
the  Antigone.  It  is,  as  is  usual  with  Sophocles,  very 
lightly  indicated  by  a  few  touches.  Athenian  art  almost 
dispensed  with  background.  There  is  one  striking 
exception  to  this  general  rule  in  the  famous  opening 
of  the  JEledra,  where  the  rising  sunlight  has  chased 
night  and  her  stars  away,  and  the  lovely  land 
with  her  cities  rings  to  the  morning  voices  of  birds. 
Landscape  and  atmosphere  are  still  more  strongly 
marked  in  the  Trachinians,  and  this  is  one  of  the 
features  which  give  that  play  a  distinctly  romantic 
note.  All  through  it  the  air  is  close  and  breathless. 
The  town  and  its  cattle-meadows  lie  in  a  cup  of  the 
hills,  with  the  unshorn  hill-pastures  high  above,  and 
higher  yet,  thunder  muttering  and  darkness  gather- 
ing about  the  forests  of  Mount  Oeta.     The  close  air. 


BACKGROUND  AND  ATMOSPHERE  163 

the  half- empty  masterless  palace,  the  hum  and 
murmur  of  the  excited  town  below,  accentuate  a 
sense  of  menace  and  misfortune  that  has  already 
made  itself  felt  in  the  opening  words  of  Deianeira. 
These  opening  words  are,  in  their  place,  unique.  They 
almost  repeat  the  closing  words,  the  moral,  of  the 
Oedipus  the  King;  it  is  as  though  Sophocles  meant  to 
indicate  by  a  single  strange  touch,  that  the  thing  that 
hath  been  is  the  thing  that  shall  be;  that  the  old 
story  of  unhappiness — Xoyo's  ap)(a.io9  avOpwirwv — 
renews  itself  among  mankind,  and  that  life  itself  is 
tragedy.  The  close,  thunderous  air  of  Trachis  is, 
by  another  touch  of  subtle  art,  put  in  contrast  with 
lole's  own  country — Sir/pejuLog  Trarpa — the  fresh,  windy 
land  that  seems  now  so  near  and  now  so  far  off. 

This  sense  of  background  helps  to  give  the  Trachi- 
nians  its  unmistakeable  accent  of  romance.  In  the 
Philoctetes  the  romantic  note  is  stronger,  but  it  is 
struck  in  a  quite  different  way.  The  Philoctetes  is  a 
romance  in  something  of  the  same  sense  in  which  the 
term  is  applied  to  the  latest  plays  of  Shakespeare,  the 
Winters  Tale,  the  Tempest,  CymMine.  Like  them,  it 
unrolls  a  story  rather  than  sets  and  solves  a  problem : 
it  deals  with  a  sort  of  life  that  actually  happens. 
As  in  Cymbeline,  a  piece  of  supernatural  machinery 
is  carelessly  and  rather  needlessly  introduced  at  the 
end  to  bring  the  story  to  a  conclusion.  As  in  the 
Tempest,  the  scene  lies  on  an  uninhabited  island,  with 
the  same  inconsistency  about  its  being  ten  leagues 
beyond  man's  life  and  yet  upon  a  main  highway 
of  commerce  and  traffic.     "You  will  see  the  spring, 


164  SOPHOCLES 

if  it    is  there  still,"   says   Odysseus,   as  though    the 
natural  features  of  the  island  might  themselves  have 
changed  since  a  ship  last  touched  at  it ;  yet  it  was 
from    this  very  island   that    merchants   and    pedlars 
brought  supplies  to  the  camp  before  Troy.     Still  more 
remarkable  is  the  way  in  which  the  play  deals  with 
what  happened  at  Troy  after  the  Iliad,  that  tract  of 
romantic  history  which  reappears  in  late  Greek  poetry, 
and  which,  later  still,  enthralled  the  imagination  of  the 
Middle  Ages.     "  Hector  is  dead,  and  Troilus  is  dead." 
Nestor  is  a  broken  man  since  the  death  of  Antilochus. 
Aias  is  gone;    Achilles  is  gone;    Patroclus  is    gone. 
Odysseus  the  bastard  ("  the  servant  of  God,"  he  calls 
himself)  and  his  dTm  damn^e  Diomede  fill  the  place  of 
greater  men.    Thersites  (as  in  Shakespeare's  Troilus  and 
Cressida)  lives.     "  He   would  " — e/xeXXe — says  Philoc- 
tetes;  "no  base  thing  ever  yet  perished;   the  Gods 
guard  such  well ;  they  take  a  strange  pleasure  in  turning 
wickedness  and  malignity  back  from  the  grave,  and 
ever  send  righteousness  and  goodness  thither.     What 
can  one  make  of  this  ?  how  commend  it  ?  for  while  I 
praise  God's  providence  I  find  God  is  evil."  ^    Euripides 
himself    never   struck    harder    than    this,    or    more 
daringly.     Even  from  this,  in  his  large,  steady  regard 
of  life,  Sophocles  will  not  shrink ;  for  this  also  is  part 
of  the  miracle  of  life,  that  it  is  hung  over  an  abyss  of 
blackness,  and  that  if  the  thin  crust  gives  way  below 
them,  men  go  mad. 

Sophocles  seems  to  take  advantage  in  this  play  of 
the  freer  handling  possible  in  romance  to  do  things 

1  PhU.  446-52. 


ROMANTIC   TRAGEDY  165 

he  never  does  elsewhere*  The  drama  is  not  only  a 
romance  but  an  enigma.  It  moves  from  mystification 
to  mystification.  As  the  lights  shift,  the  figures  seem 
to  change  their  identity.  One  might  almost  fancy 
that  the  disguised  merchantman  reappears  at  the  end 
freshly  disguised  as  Heracles.  Neoptolemus  sometimes 
seems  the  dupe  of  Odysseus,  the  Roderigo  to  his  lago : 
sometimes  he  seems  his  confederate  from  first  to  last. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  his  revolt,  or  seeming  revolt, 
at  the  end,  when  he  defies  Odysseus  and  offers  to 
sail  home  with  Philoctetes  ?  He  has  no  ship.  Has 
Odysseus  told  him,  what  he  did  not  tell  him  earlier  in 
the  play,  that  Troy  not  only  cannot  be  taken  without 
the  arrows  of  Philoctetes,  but  cannot  be  taken  without 
Philoctetes  himself?  Ourselves  we  only  know  this 
from  what  Heracles  says  at  the  very  end.  In  any 
case,  what  Sophocles  sets  before  us  in  this  play  is  not 
merely  the  marvellousness,  the  awe  and  wonder,  of  life, 
but  its  baffling  mobility  and  complexity. 

Such  at  least  is  the  effect  produced  upon  one  by  the 
play.  It  may  mean  a  mood  in  Sophocles ;  it  may  only 
mean  that,  to  one  who  saw  life  steadily  and  whole, 
the  dissolving  effect  of  the  romantic  spirit,  and  the 
disillusion  and  blank  negation  in  which  romance  ends 
under  the  overpowering  touch  of  analysis,  were  also 
parts  of  the  great  miracle,  neither  more  nor  less 
wonderful  than  any  other  manifestation  of  life. 

The  Oedipus  at  Colonus,  in  detached  scenes  and 
passages  more  beautiful,  more  pathetic,  more  splendid 
than  almost  any  other  of  the  plays,  belongs  likewise  to 
the  class  of  romances  in  its  loosely  knit  structure,  its 


166  SOPHOCLES 

digressions,  a  certain  relaxation  of  the  handling.  Like 
the  Shakespearian  romances,  it  deals  with  things  as 
they  actually  happen,  but  suffuses  them  with  a 
strange  glow  of  beauty.  Tt  yap  to  /ulci'^op  '^  Kar 
avOpcoTTov  poa-ek ;  says  Theseus  to  Oedipus :  even  such 
woes  as  his  belong  to  the  daily  human  lot.  To 
him,  like  Cleomenes  to  Leontes  in  the  Winters  Tale, 
Sophocles  seems  to  say — 

No  fault  could  you  make 
Which  you  have  not  redeem'd  ;  indeed,  paid  down 
More  penitence  than  done  trespass  :  at  the  last, 
Do  as  the  heavens  have  done,  forget  your  evil ; 
With  them  forgive  yourself. 

The  signs  which  came  to  him — 

(TrjjULeia  S'  rj^eiv  TcopSe  [jlol  Traptjyyva, 
^  areicriuLov  tj  ^povrrjv  tiv  %  A109  creXa^  * 
eyvooKa  /jlcv  vuv  cog  /xe  Ti^vSe  Tf]v  oSov 
ovK  earO*  oiroog  ov  ttkttov  e^  vjulcov  iTTepov 
e^riyay  eg  to^'  a\(rog — 

are  like  those  which  come  to  Posthumus  in  prison 
in  the  last  act  of  Cymbeline.  The  strangely  introduced 
passage  on  Egyptian  habits  of  life  (11.  337  foil.)  bears 
a  curious  resemblance  to  the  equally  irrelevant  digres- 
sion in  Act  II.  of  the  Tempest  where  Gonzalo  plans  his 
ideal  state:  in  both  cases  the  lax  construction  of 
romance  allows  the  dramatist  to  insert  something  that 
has  nothing  to  do  organically  with  the  action  or  situa- 
tion, but  about  which  he  had  been  reading  and  of 
which  his  head  was  still  full.  But  the  sense  of  the 
wonderfulness  of  life  recedes  in  the  Oedipus  at  Colonus 
before  the  sense  of  the  omnipotence  of  time.     The 


THE   OEDIPUS  167 

greatest  speech  in  the  play  is  not  that  relating  to  the 
disappearance  of  Oedipus ;  it  is  Oedipus'  own  speech 
to  Theseus,  the  one  which  begins,  "  0  dearest  son  of 
Aegeus,  to  the  Gods  alone  belongs  not  old  age  nor 
death."  And  the  deepest  note  of  the  play  is  struck 
when  Theseus,  a  little  earlier,  declares  that  since  he 
has  "  no  power  over  the  morrow  "  he  will  do  justice 
and  love  mercy  to-day.^ 

I  have  hardly  touched  so  far  on  the  central  group 
of  Sophoclean  plays.  The  seven  extant  tragedies 
represent  the  considered  selection  of  antiquity  from 
the  poet's  whole  work.  But  there  was  a  still  further 
selection,  the  iJ-eloiv  eKXoyrj,  of  three  out  of  the  seven : 
and  we  may  have  the  more  confidence  in  the  judg- 
ment which  selected  the  seven,  because  we  can  see  for 
ourselves  that  the  four  classed  by  it  in  the  second 
rank,  splendid  as  they  are,  do  not  in  fact  attain  unto 
the  first  three.  Each  of  the  three,  the  Oedipus  the 
King,  the  Aias,  and  the  Medra,  would  require  a  lecture, 
indeed  a  series  of  lectures,  to  itself.  But  each  has  a 
striking  and  unique  quality  of  its  own,  of  which  it 
may  be  possible  in  a  few  words  to  give  some  hint  or 
indication. 

Oedipus  the  King  is  the  culmination  of  the  harder 
middle  style  of  Sophocles.  It  represents,  in  that 
method,  perfection.  The  astonishing  skill  of  its  con- 
struction has  made  it,  since  Aristotle,  or  even  earlier — 
for  Aristotle's  tone  implies  an  opinion  already  fixed 
and  orthodox — the  Sophoclean  masterpiece,  the  typical 
Sophoclean  play.     It  is  hardly  that.     A  masterpiece 

1  Oed.  Col.,  607-628,  565. 


168  SOPHOCLES 

it  certainly  is;  but  for  once  we  may  be  inclined  to 
think  it  over-weighted  with  technical  accomplish- 
ment. The  plot  is  of  an  almost  mathematical 
perfection;  it  gives  the  same  sort  of  intellectual 
excitement  as  one  of  those  theorems  in  Newton's 
Frincipia  which  actually  make  the  pulse  go  quicker 
as  one  follows  them.  The  verse  is  polished  like 
steel ;  the  setting  out,  with  its  unusually  large  amount 
of  single-line  dialogue  varied  by  long  set  speeches, 
retains  a  trace  of  archaic  stiffness ;  the  dramatic  move- 
ment, as  for  instance  in  the  first  entrance  of  Creon,  is 
also  just  a  little  hard.  It  shows  throughout  effortless 
mastery;  but  it  has  not  quite  to  the  degree  we 
may  find  elsewhere  the  play  of  light  and  shade,  the 
mellow  harmony  of  tone,  the  suggestiveness  and  the 
appeal  to  imaginative  emotion.  It  is  placed  justly 
at  the  head  of  Sophocles'  work ;  it  is  not  quite  in  the 
centre  of  his  poetry. 

The  central  heart  of  his  poetry  is  found,  I  think,  in 
the  other  two  plays  of  the  lesser  selection.  The  Aias 
is  unequalled  for  splendour  and  elevation,  the  Electra 
for  brilHance  and  elasticity.  Both  have  in  the  highest 
degree  the  (j^uality  for  which  the  countrymen  of 
Shakespeare  have  no  better  or  higher  name  than 
Shakespearian.  Aias  himself,  strangely  unlike  the 
Aias  of  tradition,  the  "  beef-witted  "  lord  of  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  is  the  most  eloquent  of  all  dramatic  heroes, 
and  has  the  greatest  range  in  his  eloquence.  Now  (as 
in  his  moralising  over  the  seasons)  he  is  as  fluent  and 
fanciful  as  Richard  II.  Now,  as  in  his  invocation  to 
the  sun,  he  is  like  Othello  in  his  last  words  for  a  sort 


THE   AIAS  169 

of  passionate  dignity,  whose  language  is  absolutely 
simple  where  in  any  other  dramatist  s  hands  it  would 
have  been  rhetorical.  Now  he  rises  to  a  lonelier 
height,  to  something  of  the  loftiness  of  Shakespeare's 
Brutus,  where  after  long  debate  with  himself  he  at 
last  sees  death  clear  before  him,  and  names  for  the 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  one  thing,  rj  KoXtog 
^rjv  rj  KoXcog  reOuriKevai,  virtu,  achievement,  whether 
through  life  or  through  death. 

Round  the  great  central  figure  is  grouped  a  whole 
portrait-gallery  of  princes :  foremost  among  them 
Odysseus,  with  his  cautious  wisdom,  redeemed  from 
hardness  by  the  touch  of  pity  even  for  an  enemy,  as 
he  reflects  on  the  instability  of  life  and  the  fragile 
tenure  of  fortune.  "  Seest  thou,"  cries  Athena  to  him 
exultingly,  "  how  great  is  the  strength  of  the  Gods  ? " 
and  his  reply  strikes  the  central  keynote  of  tragedy, 
the  pity  and  fear  which  are  the  lesson  of  mortal  things. 


€irOlKT€Lp(Jd   Oe   VLV 

ovcTTrivov  ejuLTTt]^,  Kalirep  ovra  Sv(r/UL€]/^, 

OvSeV  TO   TOVTOV  lULClWoV   rj   TOVJUiOV   (rKOTTCOV  • 

opco  yap  ^/xa?  ovSep  ovrag  aWo  irXrjv 
e'locoX'  ocronrep  ^wjulcv^  fj  Koucprjp  (tk^olv} 

In  these  sad  and  noble  lines  we  seem  to  hear,  more 
than  elsewhere,  Sophocles  speaking  in  his  own  voice 
and  giving  final  expression  to  his  deepest  thoughts  in 
presence  of  the  mystery  and  pain  of  life.  On  a  second 
plane  and  grouped  towards  the  end  of  the  action  are 
the    other    Achaean    captains :    Teucer,    courageous, 

1  Aias,  121-6. 


170  SOPHOCLES 

unimaginative,  straightforward ;  Menelaus,  with  his 
Spartan  combination  of  meanness  and  vindictiveness ; 
and  the  remarkable  figure  of  Agamemnon,  the  typical 
Greek  dynast,  hard  and  unsympathetic,  yet  with  a 
certain  intellectual  force  that  raises  him  to  a  real 
elevation,  when  he  declares  that  "  the  law  must  stand  " 
— KaracTTaa-i^  yevoir  av  ovSevo^  v6/ulov — and  that  the  living 
act  idly  in  considering  the  dead ;  to  whom  Aias  has 
simply  ceased  to  exist  or  to  matter — avSpog  ovkct  ovrog 
aXy  rjSri  (TKm — when  the  breath  is  out  of  his  body. 
Against  that  group  of  grim  men  stands  out  the  lovely 
portraiture  of  Tecmessa,  wistful  and  gentle,  with  her 
simple  eloquence  and  timid  unheeded  wisdom,  the 
most  appealing  figure  in  the  whole  of  ancient  dramatic 
literature. 

There  remains  the  Electra.  It  is  on  the  whole  the 
most  Sophoclean  and  the  most  Shakespearian  of  all 
the  plays.  Nowhere  in  Sophocles,  nowhere  perhaps 
in  poetry,  is  there  a  greater  sense  conveyed  of  the 
victoriousness  of  life,  of  the  way  in  which  it  rises  anew 
over  its  own  dead  past,  and  lets  old  sins  and  sorrows 
fade  away  among  forgotten  things.  As  part  of  the 
miracle  of  life  we  are  presented  with  the  miracle  of 
self-renewal. 

The  Electra,  as  the  one  instance  in  which  we  have 
a  drama  on  the  same  subject  by  each  of  the  three 
great  Attic  tragedians,  gives  in  a  rather  unique 
way  a  test  or  gauge  of  the  Sophoclean  method. 
The  Libation-Camers  of  Aeschylus  is  not,  to  be  sure, 
Aeschylus  at  quite  his  greatest;  it  is,  comparatively 
speaking,  in  the  slack  water  between  the  vast  ocean- 


THE   ELECTRA  171 

tide  of  the  Agamemnon  and  the  reflux  of  the  Eumenides^ 
"  as  the  waves  of  the  ebb  drawing  seaward  when  their 
hollows  are  full  of  the  night."  The  Eledra  of  Euripides, 
that  masterly  study  in  hysteria,  is  vitiated  as  poetry, 
like  much  of  Euripides'  work,  by  its  subordination  of 
creation  to  analysis.  But  between  the  two,  the  Eledra 
of  Sophocles  has  of  late  obtained,  I  will  not  say  less 
than  justice,  but  some  failure  of  intelligent  apprecia- 
tion. It  has  been  suggested  that,  if  the  play  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  "a  combination  of  matricide  and 
good  spirits,"  we  must  believe  that  Sophocles  wrote 
it  in  reaction  against  the  treatment  of  Euripides, 
and  deliberately  sought  in  it  a  "  primitive "  atmos- 
phere and  handling,  returned  deliberately  upon  an 
archaistic  and  unreal  convention.  It  is  true  that 
we  find  in  it — most  notably  in  the  dream  of  Clytem- 
nestra  and  in  the  description  of  the  chariot  race — a 
remarkable  reconstitution  for  dramatic  purposes  of  the 
epic  manner.  But  otherwise  such  criticism  appears 
to  miss  both  the  fineness  and  the  depth  of  Sophoclean 
art.  Sophocles  does  not  concern  himself  to  justify,  or 
to  condemn,  or  even  to  explain ;  here  as  elsewhere  he 
sets  the  wonder  of  life  before  us  and  lets  us  draw  our 
own  conclusions.  This  play  has  no  words  of  summing 
up  at  the  end,  not  even  an  awful  and  passionless  line  like 
that  at  the  end  of  the  Trachinians,  "and  naught  herein 
but  is  of  God."  In  the  exit-speech  of  the  Chorus  he 
deliberately  refrains  from  pointing  any  moral.  It  is 
tragedy  carried  beyond  tragedy ;  it  is  art  for  the  sake 
of  life.  Whether  such  a  thing  were  possible  in  art  we 
might  doubt,  were  it  not  that  the  greatest  artists  have 


172  SOPHOCLES 

done  it.  Sophocles  has  done  it  here.  If  there  is  a  fault 
to  be  found  with  the  play,  it  is  that  Sophocles  has 
carried  in  it  his  method  of  compression  and  reserve 
to  a  degree  almost  beyond  the  grasp  of  ordinary  in- 
telligence. The  confession  of  Clytemnestra  (1.  525 
foil.)  is  as  great  as  that  made  by  her  in  the  Agamemnon, 
but  it  is  fined  down  into  a  needle-point.  The  single 
shriek  of  Electra  when  she  hears  the  news  of  Orestes' 
death  is  a  lightning-flash  revealing  for  a  moment  gulfs 
of  passion,  and  as  suddenly  withdrawn.  Her  other 
single  line  of  self-revelation  and  self-condemnation 
(1.  1311),  "the  old  hatred  is  molten  into  me,"  con- 
tains implicitly  the  self-torturing  hysterical  Electra 
of  Euripides ;  but  it  is  left  alone  and  not  worked 
upon.  The  murder  of  Clytemnestra  is  not  suggested, 
or  apparently  contemplated  by  her  ;  it  comes  suddenly 
upon  her  in  one  overwhelming  moment.  "They  do 
the  deed,"  she  whispers :  it  is  the  exact  phrase  of 
Macbeth ;  and  for  the  rest  of  that  scene  she  can  only 
speak  in  brief  gasps,  in  choking  half-lines.  There  is 
little  enough  of  good  spirits  here ;  little  enough  of  any 
primitive  atmosphere,  except  in  the  sense  in  which  life 
itself  is  primitive,  and  art  the  express  image  of  life. 

And  thus  to  the  Electra^  as  to  the  whole  marvel  and 
mystery  of  life  embodied  in  the  poetry  of  Sophocles, 
there  is  no  solution ;  for  a  solution  would  imply  that 
there  was  something  beyond  life  and  greater  than  life. 
Or  if  we  can  speak  of  a  solution,  it  is  simply  this,  that 
life  goes  on,  renews  itself,  moves  triumphantly  forward 
for  ever ;  in  a  word,  that  life  is.  One  might  almost 
say  that  to  his  art  ethics  and  religion,  the  problems  set 


ART   AND   LIFE  173 

and  solved  or  declared  insoluble  by  the  thinkers,  do  not 
matter.  Before  his  clear  profound  vision,  ordinary  ethics, 
ordinary  religion,  the  common  tissue  of  actual  human 
feelings  and  thoughts  and  deeds,  open  up  depths  as 
wonderful  as  any  reached  by  the  masters  of  con- 
structive systems  or  of  destructive  analysis.  This  is 
the  first  and  last  message  of  Sophocles,  if  one  can 
speak  of  the  message  of  a  supreme  art.  Say  not  in 
thine  heart,  who  shall  ascend  into  heaven  ?  like  Aeschylus, 
or,  who  shall  descend  into  the  deep  ?  like  Euripides :  the 
word  is  nigh  thee,  even  in  thy  mouth  and  in  thy  heart. 
With  a  power,  an  ease,  a  skill  which  are  the  culminating 
achievement  of  the  Greek  genius,  he  employs  the 
endless  miracle  of  language  to  express  and  interpret, 
to  set  out  in  clear  faultless  pattern,  the  fathomless 
miracle  of  life. 


AFTER    ATHENS 


^ 


Oa 


op 


He 


r^"^s,r. 


-^^r^y 


I 

THE    ALEXANDRIANS 

In  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  Greek  poetry  had 
concentrated  at  high  tension  in  Athens.  Throughout 
that  century,  the  most  thrilling,  the  most  crowded,  the 
most  dramatic  of  all  in  human  history,  Athens  was 
Greece  in  the  field  of  letters  no  less  than  in  that 
of  thought  and  of  politics.  She  held  the  empire 
of  poetry  and  imposed  it  upon  the  whole  Hellenic 
world.  The  school  of  Athens  absorbed  or  attracted 
into  itself  the  intellect  and  imagination  of  Greece. 
Athenian  poetry  fixed  the  model  and  set  the 
limit  for  poetic  accomplishment.  The  effort,  in 
poetry  as  in  political  and  civic  life,  was  too  great 
for  human  powers  to  maintain.  Both  empires  fell 
within  the  century  of  their  foundation  and  within  a 
few  months  of  one  another.  Euripides  and  Sophocles 
both  died  early  in  the  year  406  B.C.  In  the  autumn 
of  the  next  year,  the  whole  Athenian  fleet  was  cap- 
tured in  the  Hellespont,  and  the  long  agony  of  the 
Peloponnesian  war  came  to  an  end. 

The  effect,  in  both  cases,  is  that  of  the  lights  being 
turned  down.  Greek  history,  from  the  fall  of  Athens 
to  the  Macedonian  conquest,  is  a  dismal  record  of 
confused  aims,  lowered  ideals,  intermittent  patchings 

"7  M 


178  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

up  which  hardly  checked  a  steady  process  of  decay. 
Greek  poetry  during  the  same  period  almost  ceased 
to  exist.  The  vital  movement  of  intelligence  and 
imagination  passed  into  prose.  That  new  vehicle  of 
expression  had  at  last  been  fully  mastered,  and  was 
reaching  the  climax  of  its  powers  in  the  hands  of 
the  orators,  the  historians,  the  philosophers.  In  the 
sphere  of  poetry  the  epoch  is  one  of  disintegration 
and  diffusion.  There  is  no  new  poet  of  the  first  or 
even  of  the  second  rank,  until,  in  a  completely  changed 
world,  we  reach  the  masters  of  the  school  of  Alexandria. 
Quite  apart  from  the  conquests  of  prose,  poetry  had,  for 
the  time,  done  all  it  could.  The  poets  of  the  fifth 
century  had  become  the  classics ;  and  there  followed 
a  long  period  of  enfeebled  and  dwindling  classicism. 
Lyric  and  dramatic  poetry  shared  in  the  common 
decay.  Even  on  the  stage  the  masterpieces  of  the 
older  tragedians  overshadowed  and  killed  the  inferior 
genius  of  their  successors.  The  dithyramb  became 
vulgarised.  The  art  of  narrative  poetry,  of  the  epic 
in  its  wide  sense,  had  been  lost.  The  growth  and 
vogue  of  the  New  Comedy  on  the  one  hand,  the  de- 
velopment of  the  essay  and  dialogue  on  the  other, 
absorbed  the  function  of  poetry  as  an  interpretation 
of  life.  People  were  on  the  one  hand  preoccupied  in 
the  literary  or  critical  study  of  the  older  writers,  and 
on  the  other  hand  had  their  attention  fully  engrossed 
with  the  profuse  supply  of  miscellaneous  work,  most 
of  it  ephemeral  and  trivial,  produced  to  meet  the 
demand  of  a  largely  increased  reading  public. 

The  lights  did  not  go  out  all  at  once,  but  those 


THE   LOWERING    OF   THE   LIGHTS     179 

that  remained  were  few  and  faint.  Aristophanes 
survived  his  two  colleagues  by  about  twenty  years; 
but  after  the  production  of  the  Frogs  he  ceased,  as 
it  would  seem,  to  be  a  lyric  poet,  while  even  his 
comedy,  missing,  as  we  may  suspect,  the  inspiration 
of  the  great  tragedy  from  which  it  was  the  reaction, 
and  to  which  it  was  the  complement,  falls  off  in 
brilliance  and  imagination.  Agathon,  that  interesting 
but  rather  elusive  figure,  in  whose  hands  it  had  seemed 
that  dramatic  poetry  might  take  a  new  range  and 
a  new  lease  of  life,  had  disappeared  into  Macedonia, 
6?  juLaKOLpoov  evcd-^lav,  and  ceased  to  be  a  living  influence. 
"A  good  poet,  and  his  friends  regret  him,"  is  the 
strange  and  perhaps  slightly  sardonic  epitaph  pro- 
nounced over  his  poetical  extinction.  The  one  hundred 
and  forty  tragedians  of  whom  some  notice  or  record 
is  left  were,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  a  mass  of  medioc- 
rities and  nonentities.  Poetical  plays  were  turned  out 
as  from  a  factory ;  the  art  or  trick  of  composing  them 
was  taught  in  schools  or  guarded  as  a  trade  secret 
in  families.  One  Sicilian  house  produced  tragedies 
through  four  successive  generations.  A  nephew  of 
Aeschylus  bequeathed  what  he  himself  had  taken  up 
as  an  inherited  profession  to  a  grandson  and  two  great- 
grandsons.  Both  a  son  and  a  grandson  of  Sophocles 
were  tragedians.  The  playwrights,  to  use  in  its 
exact  meaning  a  term  which  has  unfortunately  become 
rubbed  down  by  usage,  were  one  section,  and  only 
one  among  others,  of  the  great  theatrical  industry ; 
they  became  first  the  colleagues,  and  then  the  sub- 
ordinates, of  the  actor-manager.     On  the  other  hand 


180  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

the  chamber-drama,  brought  to  a  high  pitch  of  finish 
by  Theodectes  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century, 
hardly  professed  to  be  poetry  at  all.  Like  the  New 
Comedy,  of  which  it  was  only  a  variant  form,  it 
retained  the  tradition  of  being  written  in  metre.  But 
for  rhetorical,  argumentative,  or  even  familiar  dia- 
logue, the  iambic,  besides  being  what  the  public 
were  accustomed  to,  was  a  vehicle  which  long  prac- 
tice had  made  even  more  facile  in  handling  than  prose  ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  great  bulk  of  the  fourth- 
century  tragedies  were  not  meant  to  be  taken  as 
poetry  in  any  higher  sense. 

The  multiplication  of  books  and  of  readers  was  also 
the  index,  as  well  as  a  contributory  cause,  of  the 
dwindling  impulse  of  production  in  all  those  kinds 
of  poetry  which  are  classed  together  under  the  name 
of  the  lyric.  Already,  in  the  fifth  century,  collections 
of  the  poems  of  the  earlier  lyrists  were  habitually 
made  to  be  read  or  sung :  the  old  wine  was  preferred 
to  the  new.  The  institution  of  the  dithyrambic  con- 
tests, at  Athens  and  elsewhere,  may  be  interpreted 
as  an  attempt  to  prop  up  a  decaying  art  by  a 
system  of  bounties.  The  Odeum  was  built  and 
endowed  by  Pericles  with  this  specific  object.  But 
in  the  performances  held  there,  poetry  was  subordinate 
to  music;  and  the  large  prizes  ofi'ered  to  successful 
dithyrambists  had  little  or  no  effect  in  arresting,  if 
they  did  not  rather  precipitate,  the  decline  of  lyrical 
and  choral  poetry.  After  the  death  of  Sophocles,  the 
most  important  figure  in  poetry  of  the  generation 
which  followed  was  Timotheus  of  Miletus.     He  was, 


PERIOD   OF   THE   TRANSITION      181 

as  has  been  already  mentioned,  the  most  popular 
poet  of  his  age.  But  his  popularity  was  corrupt 
in  its  origin  and  disastrous  in  its  effects.  Clever, 
showy,  and  florid,  his  poetry  debased  the  standard 
of  taste  all  over  Greece.  The  citadel  of  Hellenic 
culture,  won  so  hardly  and  built  up  by  such  im- 
mense effort,  was  crumbling  away.  The  Heliconian 
springs  were  laid  open,  and  their  waters  spread  in  a 
shallow  flood,  tepid  and  turbid,  over  an  exhausted 
Hellas  and  a  half-Hellenised  outer  world.  Only  in 
a  few  minor  and,  if  one  may  use  the  word,  provincial 
poets  of  the  fourth  century,  do  the  pure  Hellenic 
tradition,  the  authentic  note  and  accent,  remain 
unimpaired;  and  their  work  is  confined,  so  far  as 
any  extant  examples  go,  to  the  briefer  flights  and 
narrower  limits  of  the  epigram.  The  Anthology  pre- 
serves specimens  of  the  work  of  three  poets  contem- 
porary with  the  reign  of  Alexander,  which  in  their 
purity  of  line,  their  reticence,  their  exquisite  modelling 
and  phrasing,  continue  the  high  tradition  of  Simonides 
and  the  Athenian  or  pre-Athenian  classics.  Two 
of  the  three,  Adaeus  and  Phaedimus,  are  not  Greeks 
of  Greece  Proper,  but  Macedonians.  In  their  work 
there  is  a  freshness,  a  serious  gravity,  which  comes 
to  us  like  a  touch  of  keen  pure  northern  air.  The 
dialectical  and  rhetorical  movement  of  their  time 
has  left  them  untouched ;  they  are  natural  primitives 
in  an  age  of  decadence  and  eclecticism.  The  third, 
the  Arcadian  poetess  Anyte  of  Tegea,  is  more  re- 
markable still.  Alone  among  her  contemporaries  she 
possesses  the  grand  style ;  this  is  what  is  meant  by 


182  THE    ALEXANDRIANS 

the  curious  phrase  "  a  woman  Homer,"  used  of  her  by 
a  later  critic,  himself  of  the  Macedonian  school,  and 
a  poet  of  no  mean  order,  Antipater  of  Thessalonica.^ 
Together  with  this,  she  has  a  deep  and  delicate 
feeling  for  nature  such  as  is  rare  in  Greek  work. 
The  twenty  epigrams  of  hers  which  are  extant  are 
not  only  the  best  of  that  age,  but  among  the  best 
of  any  period:  in  their  qUiet  beauty  and  simple 
grace  they  are  fit  to  stand — and  no  higher  praise 
could  be  given  them — beside  the  work  of  Simon- 
ides. 

That  the  last  notes  of  Hellenic  poetry  in  its  full 
purity  and  authentic  tone  come  from  outlying  lands  or 
remote  hill-fastnesses  is  something  more  than  an 
accident.  It  is  a  symbol  of  what  was  happening  to 
Hellenic  life.  For  the  whole  movement  of  that  life, 
and  of  poetry  with  it,  had  become  one  of  decentralisa- 
tion. That  term  may  bear  more  than  one  meaning, 
but  in  all  its  meanings  it  applies  here.  Like  all  vital 
functions,  poetry  is  subject  to  a  periodic  movement, 
a  rhythmic  contraction  and  dilatation.  The  diffused 
poetical  life  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  had  flooded  in 
upon  Athens  and  concentrated  there.  Now  it  ebbed 
outwards.  But  the  world  into  which  it  passed  out 
was  immensely  enlarged,  and  had  lost  its  responsive- 
ness to  the  poetical  instinct.  Life  was  on  a  larger 
scale,  but  at  a  lower  tension  and  feebler  vitality.  The 
city  of  the  Violet  Crown,  the  city  which  had  given  a 
new  life  to  Homer,  which  had  gathered  up  the  lyric 
and  created  the  drama,  became  politically  an  unim- 

^  ^AvOrrji  crbfiay  Orj\vp"0fjt.r)pov,  Anth.  Pal.,  ix.  26. 


THE   LOST   CENTRE  18B 

portant  provincial  town,  and  intellectually  the  seat  of 
a  cosmopolitan  university.  Greece  in  its  old  sense 
ceased  to  exist:  the  Hellenic  life  was  absorbed  and 
diluted  in  the  quasi-Hellenised  world  of  the  Graeco- 
Macedonian  empires.  Earlier  epochs  of  expansion  had 
only  reinforced  the  central  life  of  the  mother-stock : 
migrations  and  colonisations  had  enriched  and  ex- 
panded Hellenism ;  but  now  the  scale  of  things  was 
too  great.     The  centre  of  poetry  was  lost. 

It  was  lost  so  completely  that  when  the  instinct  for 
poetry  reasserted  itself — for  it  cannot  be  destroyed — it 
had  to  start  afresh,  laboriously  and  to  a  large  extent  in- 
effectually, to  try  to  find  it  again,  without  well  knowing 
where  to  look  for  it.  Poetry  seemed  a  thing  done  with, 
an  art  of  the  past.  It  had  ceased  to  be  a  living 
function  and  interpretation  of  life.  Those  who  felt 
within  them  still  the  instinct  for  imaginative  creation 
did  not  quite  know  what  they  would  be  at.  They  had 
no  new  interpretation  of  life  to  offer.  They  were 
overshadowed  by  their  own  classics.  The  great  poets 
reared  a  menacing  and  seemingly  insurmountable 
barrier  between  them  and  poetry.  "AXf?  Travreara-iv 
"Oimrjpoi — "Homer  is  enough  for  anybody" — the  re- 
markable phrase  used  by  Theocritus,  expresses  not 
only  the  cynical  doctrine  of  the  outer  world,  but  the 
deep-seated  belief  of  scholars  and  the  despondent 
conclusion  of  poets. 

Yet  it  was  among  the  scholars  that  the  reaction 
began.  The  whole  history  of  earlier  Alexandrianism, 
a  steady  laborious  poetical  movement  which  went  on 
at  full  pressure  for  something  like  half  a  century,  is 


184  THE    ALEXANDRIANS 

the  history  of  an  attempt  to  bring  poetry  back  into 
touch  with  life,  to  reinstate  it  as  a  living  art.  This 
statement  of  the  case  may  at  first  sight  appear  para- 
doxical. The  Alexandrians  are  dismissed  in  common 
surveys  of  Greek  literature,  as  little  more  than  pedants. 
They  are  called  artificial  poets,  as  though  all  poetry 
were  not  artificial,  and  the  greatest  poetry  were  not 
the  poetry  of  most  consummate  artifice.  Their  poetic 
instinct,  except  in  one  or  two  cases,  is  denied.  That 
their  poetic  production  was  mingled  with  pedantry 
is  true;  it  is  true  also  that  in  their  inferior  work 
the  pedantry  is  more  conspicuous  than  the  poetry. 
But  we  must  go  deeper.  If  they  did  not  care  for 
poetry,  why  did  they  practise  it  so  incessantly  and  with 
such  pains  and  devotion  ?  The  reason  is  simply  this : 
that  the  centre  of  poetry  having  become  lost,  they  were 
trying  their  best  to  find  it.  In  this  attempt  they  did 
not  fully  succeed.  But  if  they  did  not  recover  poetry 
they  made  a  serious  advance  on  the  way  towards  its 
recovery.  They  ploughed  the  fallows,  and  prepared 
the  field  for  new  seed.  The  Latin  genius  entered  into 
the  field  they  had  prepared.  The  Alexandrians  were  the 
interpreters  of  Hellas  and  the  forerunners  of  Ausonia. 
In  either  way  their  effective  value  in  the  life  of  poetry 
can  hardly  be  overestimated.  They  filled  up  with 
their  bodies,  one  might  almost  say,  the  gap  that  might 
otherwise  have  become  an  impassable  chasm.  They 
kept  the  poetry  of  the  past  alive,  and  nursed  the  seeds 
of  the  poetry  of  the  future.  But  for  them,  Greek  poetry 
might  have  perished  out  of  the  world.  But  for  them, 
Latin  poetry  might  never  have  come  to  the  birth.     We 


THE   ALEXANDRIAN   TASK  185 

are  too  much  accustomed  to  think  of  the  Alexandrian 
period  as  one  wholly  of  decadence,  of  imitative 
classicism,  of  a  poetry  based  on  literature  and  out  of 
touch  with  life.  Out  of  touch  with  life  it  was,  for  it 
was  thus  that  after  the  gap  of  the  fourth  century  B.C. 
the  Alexandrians  found  it ;  but  what  they,  or  the  best 
of  them,  tried  hard  to  do,  was  to  bring  it  into  touch 
with  life  again  in  a  new  way.  To  do  this  they  had  to 
re-train  the  art ;  they  set  themselves  to  school  for  this 
purpose,  with  a  touching  and  very  modern  belief  in  the 
saving  virtue  of  education.  Many  of  them  stopped  short 
there,  and  remained  through  life  only  learners,  art- 
students  and  not  artists.  They  were  engrossed  in  the 
drill  and  technique  of  their  art,  never  getting  beyond 
the  stage  of  studies  and  exercises,  and  finally  losing 
sight  of  the  end  in  the  means,  and  settling  down,  like 
students  in  an  art-school  who  never  become  painters, 
to  the  endless  and  enfeebling  study  of  poetical  mechan- 
ism. Imitators  they  were,  as  all  beginners  must  be ; 
and  the  weight  of  their  own  classics  lay  so  heavy  upon 
them  that  few  of  them,  and  these  with  a  hard  struggle, 
passed  beyond  imitation  or  got  free  to  create.  But  as 
regards  the  progress  of  poetry,  what  gives  the  age  its 
meaning  is  not  that  it  was  an  age  of  decadence :  it  is 
that  it  was  an  age  of  difficult  and  delayed  germina- 
tion. The  seeds  of  new  life  were  under  the  surface. 
Out  of  a  silver  age,  like  that  of  Latin  poetry  under 
the  Empire,  nothing  comes;  it  only  dwindles  away 
slowly  and  dies.  But  out  of  Alexandrianism  came, 
with  the  touch  of  a  new  life  in  a  new  language,  Latin 
poetry. 


186  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

Thus  we  see  the  Alexandrian  poets  doing  two  things. 
They  were  not  only  copying  and  studying,  though  they 
copied  industriously  and  studied  incessantly ;  they  were 
also  searching  and  experimenting,  trying  to  find  out 
new  forms  for  poetry  and  to  adapt  these  forms  to  new 
subjects,  trying,  in  a  word,  to  bring  back  poetry  into 
touch  with  life.  They  practised  in  almost  every 
method,  in  order  to  strike  out  some  new  method, 
such  as  would  effect  what  poetry  wanted.  An  altered 
world  called  insistently  for  new  means  of  imaginative 
expression,  for  a  new  interpretation  of  its  meaning. 
With  the  break-up  of  Hellas,  with  the  diffusion  and 
decentralisation  of  Hellenism,  the  ideals  of  life  and 
thought  had  also  changed.  The  technique  of  art  in 
its  old  sense  had  been  mastered  and  become  common 
property.  Science  had  been  definitely  organised.  The 
study  of  the  physical  world  had  become  an  important 
part  of  culture,  and  the  study  of  the  past,  on  its  two 
sides  of  history  and  archaeology,  was  established  as  part 
of  science.  Working  on  these  two  lines,  the  imaginative 
or  poetical  instinct  developed  on  the  one  hand  out  of 
the  study  of  the  physical  world  a  new  feeling  for 
nature ;  on  the  other  hand,  out  of  the  study  of  history 
and  archaeology  a  new  feeling  for  the  romance  of  the 
past.  Widened  sympathy  brought  with  it  increased 
sensibility ;  and  to  this  increased  sensibility  is  to  be 
ascribed  the  rapid  growth  and  immense  development 
of  sentiment.  The  growth  of  sentiment  is  most 
strikingly  marked  as  regards  the  treatment  of  love. 
Amatory  poetry,  the  treatment  of  the  psychology 
of  passion  and  sentiment,  sprang  rapidly  into  a  leading 


THE   ADAPTATION    OF   FUNCTION     187 

branch  of  the  art.  The  discovery  was  niade  that 
matter  existed  on  this  side  of  human  Kfe  which  not 
only  was  inexhaustible  in  its  appeal  to  the  senses 
and  the  imagination,  but  admitted  of  infinite  varia- 
tions in  treatment.  Zes  nuances  d! amour  sont  infinies : 
that  discovery,  made  then  in  its  fulness  for  the  first 
time,  had,  as  it  always  has  had  whenever  it  has  been 
re-made,  profound  results,  always  interesting,  sometimes 
disastrous,  but,  both  for  good  and  for  evil,  creating  a 
new  sphere,  and  one  might  almost  say  a  new  function, 
for  art. 

It  is  in  view  of  these  considerations  that  Alexandrian 
poetry,  otherwise  so  confusing  in  its  intricacy  and  so 
largely  meaningless  in  its  purport,  can  be  best  classi- 
fied and  appreciated.  When  I  say  classified,  I  should 
perhaps  rather  use  a  word  less  suggestive  of  the 
arrangement  of  a  museum.  For  poetry  was  not  dead ; 
it  was  struggling,  at  a  low  vitality,  painfully  and 
laboriously,  towards  fresh  life.  Its  value  for  us  as 
poetry  exists  only  in  so  far  as  we  can  feel  in  it  the 
working  of  that  process,  and  thus  can  relate  it  organi- 
cally to  the  larger  life  of  poetry.  Looking  at  it  in 
this  way  we  may  be  able  to  grasp  the  imaginative 
value,  the  poetical  object  and  meaning,  of  the  specific 
forms  which  it  took.  Of  these  there  are  five,  or 
five  which  are  important:  the  elegy,  the  idyl,  the 
pastoral,  the  so-called  didactic  poem,  and  the  romantic 
epic. 

Of  the  definition  of  the  elegy,  in  some  ways  the 
most  important,  as  it  was  the  most  largely  cultivated, 
of  all  these  forms,  there  will  be  more  to  say  presently. 


188  THE    ALEXANDRIANS 

The  idyl  I  use  in  its  original  and  proper  meaning  to 
express  what  may,  on  the  analogy  of  the  term  cabinet- 
picture  in  the  art  of  painting,  be  called  a  cabinet-poem ; 
a  small  detachable  work,  highly  finished,  complete  in 
itself,  and  not  designed  to  take  a  definite  place  in  any 
larger  imaginative  interpretation  or  pattern  of  life. 
The  pastoral  and  the  romantic  epic  do  not  for  our 
immediate  purpose  require  any  closer  definition,  which 
may  be  deferred  for  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  two  poets 
who  were  their  first  masters,  Theocritus  and  Apol- 
lonius.  The  term  didactic  poem  is  an  unhappy  and 
gravely  misleading  one,  but  so  embodied  in  usage  that 
it  may  be  conveniently  employed  instead  of  inventing 
a  new  name,  so  long  as  we  keep  clear  of  the  false 
implication  which  its  literal  meaning  would  convey. 

In  each  of  these  forms  the  attempt  made  by  the 
Alexandrians  was  to  create  a  new  artistic  vehicle  which 
should  be  capable  of  bringing  back  poetry  into  relation 
with  life.  In  the  elegy  they  were  trying  to  get  poetry 
into  relation  with  the  smaller  specialised  interests — 
some  more  intimate,  others  more  derivative  or  artificial 
— of  a  life  in  which  the  full  synthesis  had  been 
lost  and  was  not  then  recoverable.  In  the  idyl 
they  were  trying  to  get  poetry  into  relation  with 
the  place  in  life,  the  effect  on  life,  of  a  matured 
and  self-centred  art.  They  were  setting  before  them- 
selves, for  the  first  time,  the  ideal  of  art  for  art's  sake, 
in  the  sense  of  an  art  which  sets  its  own  problems  and 
has  no  conscious  object  beyond  the  artistic  satisfaction 
of  solving  them.  In  the  pastoral  they  were  trying  to 
get   poetry  into  relation    with    the    new    feeling   for 


THE    NEW   MOTIVES  189 

nature :  a  feeling  which  had  arisen  partly  in  reaction 
from  the  intense  civic  life  of  a  past  age,  partly  in 
weariness  of  civilisation,  partly  in  a  natural  process  of 
psychological  development  such  as  may  be  traced  in 
all  literatures.  In  the  didactic  poem  they  were  trying 
to  get  poetry  into  relation  with  science,  with  sys- 
tematised  knowledge  based  on  observation,  record, 
experiment  and  classification :  knowledge  of  the 
physical  universe  in  its  constitution  and  processes, 
and  also  of  the  constitution  and  processes  of  the 
human  mind  in  its  threefold  energies  of  thought, 
production,  and  conduct,  the  division  laid  down  once 
for  all  by  Aristotle.  Finally,  in  the  romantic  epic  all 
these  motives  were  in  some  degree  combined,  but  in 
subordination  to  another.  A  movement  was  made 
beyond  them,  in  a  fresh  direction,  towards  a  new 
synthesis  of  poetry.  This  was  the  movement  which  was 
carried  on  and  completed  by  the  genius  of  Virgil,  and 
which  was  the  last  gift  of  Greece  through  Rome 
to  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  new  world. 

Thus  the  Alexandrian  age  represents  the  decen- 
tralisation of  poetry  in  two  senses:  not  only  in  the 
sense  that  Hellenic  culture  had  ceased  to  be  Hellenic 
and  had  become  cosmopolitan,  that  its  life,  and  the 
life  of  the  poetry  in  which  it  found  its  artistic  embodi- 
ment and  imaginative  interpretation,  was  no  longer 
concentrated  at  a  single  point,  but  also  in  the  more 
important  sense  that  poetry  had  lost  its  centre  and 
ceased  to  deal  with  life  as  a  whole.  But  it  represents 
also  the  feeling  after  a  new  recovery,  the  stirrings 
towards  a  fresh  movement  of  progress.    Alexandrianism 


190  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

did  three  things.  In  the  first  place,  it  collected,  pre- 
served, and  annotated  the  texts  of  the  Greek  poets. 
Secondly,  it  kept  the  poetical  mechanism,  the  method 
and  technique  of  poetry  as  a  fine  art,  in  working  order. 
Thirdly,  as  I  have  attempted  to  indicate,  it  began  to  set 
poetry  itself  on  the  way  towards  new  developments. 
In  all  three  ways  its  service  to  the  world  was  so  great 
as  to  merit  more  acknowledgm.ent  than  it  generally 
receives.  The  scholarship  and  technique  of  the  Alex- 
andrians are  of  course  admitted,  as  they  are  beyond 
question.  But  the  pedantries  of  a  past  age  seldom 
find  favour  in  the  eyes  of  an  age  engrossed  with 
new  pedantries  of  its  own;  and  we  are  a  little  too 
apt,  I  think,  to  judge  Alexandrian  poetry  in  the  lump 
and  not  discriminate  carefully  or  delicately  enough 
between  that  in  it  which  is  dead  matter,  and  that  in 
which  the  life  of  poetry,  though  dormant  or  at  low 
pressure,  is  still  there. 

The  term  Alexandrian  bears  two  senses,  which  it  is 
necessary  to  distinguish.  In  its  larger  sense  it  is  used 
to  include  the  Wrhole  of  the  Greek  or  quasi-Greek 
literature — for  it  was  Hellenistic  rather  than  Hellenic — 
belonging  to  the  period  of  the  great  monarchies  founded 
by  Alexander's  marshals.  From  the  death  of  Alex- 
ander at  Babylon  until  the  annexation  of  Syria  by  the 
Roman  Republic  "made  an  end  of  an  old  song"  and  swept 
away  the  dwindled  remains  of  the  once  vast  Seleucid 
empire,  there  are  a  little  more  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  These  two  centuries  and  a  half  include  a 
very  large  poetical  literature,  from  Philetas  and  Ascle- 
piades    at    their    commencement,    through    the   rich 


ALEXANDRIA  191 

period  of  Theocritus,  Callimachus,  Euphorion,  and 
Aratus  to  the  younger  generation  of  ApoUonius 
Ehodius,  Rhianus,  and  Antipater  of  Sidon,  and  so  on 
until  it  ends  with  Meleager  and  Parthenius.  This 
poetry  was  widely  diffused  over  the  Eastern  Medi- 
terranean, to  some  extent  in  Greece  Proper  and  the 
islands,  but  more  largely  in  outlying  and  only  partially 
Hellenised  areas;  in  Sicily,  Macedonia,  Asia  Minor, 
Syro-Phoenicia,  Egypt  and  Cyrene.  It  had  no 
national  centre.  But  under  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  II. 
it  drew  together  at  Alexandria,  and  from  that  time 
forward  the  term  Alexandrian  may  be  used  in  its 
other  and  more  restricted  sense  to  cover  the  poetry 
written  or  published  there.  Alexandria  had  become 
the  largest  and  wealthiest  city  in  the  Hellenistic  world. 
Men  of  letters  naturally  congregated  to  it,  partly  from 
an  instinct  of  confederation,  partly  from  the  advan- 
tages offered  by  its  university  and  library,  its  organised 
publishing  trade,  and  the  munificent  patronage  ex- 
tended to  literature  by  the  court.  Other  literary 
centres  enjoyed  similar  advantages,  but  not  to  the 
same  extent.  Aratus  found  his  way  from  his  birth- 
place in  Cilicia  to  the  court  of  Antigonus  at  Pella, 
where  the  Macedonian  school  of  poetry  was  of  some 
importance.  Euphorion  became  chief  librarian  to 
Antiochus  the  Great.  Poets  gathered  later  round  the 
Attalid  court  at  Pergamum  and  the  magnificent 
library  founded  there  by  Eumenes  II.  The  Sicilian 
school,  which  had  an  old  tradition,  continued  to  flourish 
at  Syracuse.  Athens  and  Rhodes,  though  they  were 
specialising  more  and  more  on  the  study  of  philosophy 


192  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

and  oratory,  retained  a  remnant  of  their  older  tradi- 
tions. But  Alexandria  was  the  main  centre ;  and  the 
Graeco -Egyptian  school  of  poets  transmitted  from  the 
reigns  of  the  earlier  Ptolemies  an  impulse  which  long 
outlasted  the  Ptolemaic  kingdom.  It  continued 
through  the  Roman  and  into  the  Byzantine  period. 
In  Palladas  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  in 
Julianus  and  Tryphiodorus  in  -the  fifth,  in  Nonnus  as 
late  as  the  sixth,  we  can  see  that  school  of  Alexandria 
still  continuing  a  desultory  and  feeble  activity  when 
Alexandria  itself  had  sunk  into  ignoble  decay,  and 
when  the  Latin  poets  who  had  owed  so  much  to 
Alexandrian  influence  had  themselves  become  the 
ancient  classics  of  a  lost  culture. 

In  the  wider  and  more  general  sense  in  which  we 
speak  of  Alexandrian  as  distinguished  from  Greek 
poetry,  Theocritus  marks  the  point  of  transition.  Of 
him  as  of  none  among  his  contemporaries  it  may 
be  said  that  he  effectively  put  new  life  into  poetry, 
that  he  is  a  poet  in  the  highest  sense,  though 
not  a  poet  of  the  first  rank.  He  is  the  first  of  the 
romanticists  ;  while  at  the  same  time,  in  virtue  of 
a  precision  of  handling  and  purity  of  line  which  are 
like  those  of  his  more  strictly  Hellenic  predecessors, 
he  is  the  last  of  the  Greek  classics.  He  stands  a 
little  apart  from,  and  a  little  higher  than,  the  Alex- 
andrian school  to  which  he  technically  belongs ;  not 
because  his  notion  of  poetry,  his  ideals  and  methods, 
were  materially  different  from  theirs,  but  because 
he  brought  to  poetry  a  higher  felicity,  a  finer  poetical 
instinct,  and  a  more  incommunicable  personal  quality. 


THE   POETRY   OF   SENTIMENT       193 

Of  Theocritus,  the  last  of  the  Greek  classics,  as  of 
ApoUonius,  the  leader  of  the  romantic  revolt  in 
poetry,  I  shall  speak  later.  In  the  meantime  I  wish 
to  resume  the  consideration  of  what  may  be  called 
the  central  movement  of  Alexandrianism.  To  trace 
this  among  a  multitude  of  names  and  through  a  mass 
of  miscellaneous  poetry  of  which,  with  but  few  excep- 
tions, we  possess  only  inconsiderable  fragments,  is  not 
easy.  Perhaps  the  clearest  view  may  be  got  by 
restricting  our  survey  to  the  third  century  and  to  a 
few  of  the  most  important  names.  These  are  Aratus, 
Callimachus,  and  Euphorion.  Among  them,  the  three 
give  the  main  central  type. 

Of  Euphorion  there  is  little  to  say,  because  nearly 
all  his  poetry  has  disappeared.  He  seems  to  be  one 
of  those  poets  who  have,  through  some  conjunction  of 
circumstances  to  which  the  clue  is  now  lost,  exercised 
an  influence  quite  disproportionate  to  their  merit  or 
accomplishment.  Partly  this  is  because  they  hit,  more 
exactly  than  their  contemporaries,  the  predominant 
taste  of  the  generation  succeeding  their  own.  Partly 
it  comes  from  those  chances  which  label  a  school 
with  the  name  of  one  rather  than  another  of  those 
who  jointly  founded  or  developed  it.  His  eifect  on 
Roman  taste  at  the  critical  period  of  the  development 
of  Latin  poetry  was  decisive.  His  name  became  the 
symbol  not  only  of  a  poetical  school,  but  of  a  way 
of  regarding  poetry.  On  Virgil  himself,  in  the  early 
period  when  he  was  under  the  influence  of  Gallus, 
Euphorion  must  have  had  an  efl'ect  that  might  have 
been  disastrous  on  a  less  balanced  or  more  precocious 

N 


194  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

genius.  The  way  in  which  he  is  coupled  by  Lucian 
with  Parthenius,  Virgil's  own  tutor,  is  one  among  many 
indications  that  Euphorionism  was  recognised  as  a 
specific  poetical  tendency  which  continued  for  at  least 
two  centuries,  and  which  left  its  traces  deeply  marked 
upon  the  world.  It  appealed  very  powerfully  to  young 
poets,  both  by  its  unrestrained  indulgence  of  sentiment 
and  by  its  profuse  ostentation  of  scholarship.  But 
except  with  those  few  who  had  the  strength  of  innate 
genius  to  outgrow  it,  it  was  a  demoralising  influence : 
and  the  ill  deeds  that  men  do  live  after  them. 

Aratus  was,  like  Euphorion,  the  founder  of  an 
important  school.  He  represents  that  side  of  the 
Alexandrian  movement  which  sought  to  find  a  new 
centre  for  poetry  in  modern  science.  Organised  science, 
the  study  of  the  physical  universe,  was  the  most 
important  and  most  characteristic  intellectual  growth 
of  the  period.  Building  on  the  foundations  laid  by 
Aristotle,  students  devoted  themselves  in  large  numbers 
and  with  assiduous  industry  to  investigating,  cata- 
loguing, and  recording  the  facts  of  nature.  But 
except  in  the  field  of  pure  and  applied  mathematics, 
the  science  of  the  Alexandrians  dealt  less  with  the 
discovery  of  laws  and  tracing  out  of  natural  processes 
than  with  the  preliminary  task  of  enumeration  and 
classification.  This  is  a  task  which,  however  im- 
portant and  necessary,  is  little  fitted  to  kindle  the 
imagination.  Pre-Socratic  science  had  dealt  in  large 
imaginative  generalisations,  and  had  produced  poetry 
like  that  of  Empedocles.  At  a  later  epoch,  when 
natural  science   had  dwindled  again  into  something 


THE    POETRY   OF   SCIENCE  195 

ancillary  to  an  ethical  interpretation  of  life,  the  physi- 
cal doctrines  of  Epicurus  became  the  basis  for  the 
majestic  poetry  of  Lucretius.  With  Aratus  and  the 
Alexandrians  it  is  different.  They  have  no  scientific 
imagination.  Facts  are  noted  chiefly  for  their  own 
sake,  and  beyond  this,  either  for  their  immediate  prac- 
tical utility  or  for  their  associations  with  mythology 
and  literature.  In  the  science  of  astronomy,  indeed, 
there  is  something  which  has  an  inherent  power  over 
the  imagination,  through  the  mere  vastness  and 
mysteriousness  of  the  objects  with  which  it  deals,  and 
their  overpowering  contrast  with  the  brief  and  tran- 
sitory life  of  man.  Astronomers  no  less  than  poets 
have  felt  that  their  science  had  in  it  something 
divine.  This  feeling  has  never  been  more  briefly  or 
nobly  expressed  than  in  the  well-known  epigram  by 
the  greatest  of  the  ancient  astronomers.  "  I  know," 
says  Ptolemy,  "  that  I  am  a  mortal  and  of  a  day,  but 
when  I  scan  the  close-woven  circling  spirals  of  the 
stars,  no  longer  do  my  feet  touch  earth,  but  I  sit  by 
God  himself  and  take  my  fill  of  the  immortal  divine 
meat."  ^  Nature  can  haunt  the  man  of  science  also  like 
a  passion,  and  make  him  for  a  moment  into  a  poet ;  and 
here,  even  in  the  decayed  world  of  the  Antonines,  imagi- 
nation could  kindle  into  expression,  and  a  flower  of 
poetry  rise  out  of  the  dusty  withered  Alexandrian  stem. 
Of  all  this  there  is  little  in  Aratus,  and  still  less 
in  Nicander  and  the  rest,  who  are  classed  together 
as  belonging  to  his  school.  The  imaginative  aspect 
of  science   does  not   tell  in  his  work;    and   this   is 

1  Anth.  Pal.,  ix.  577. 


196  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

because  he  was  not  himself  a  trained  investigator 
of  nature,  but  a  man  of  letters  who  was  interested 
in  science  from  the  outside.  The  consequence  is 
that  in  him  there  is  a  gap  left  between  science 
and  life.  His  poetry  is  not  organic.  In  the 
matter  of  the  Phaenomena  he  versifies  Eudoxus,  in 
that  of  the  Diosemeia  he  versifies  Aristotle  and  Theo- 
phrastus.  He  felt,  as  his  whole  age  felt,  that  in 
Empedocles  they  found  something  which  they  did  not 
find  in  Homer ;  but  they  did  not  realise  clearly  that 
what  was  essential  and  common  in  both  Empedocles 
and  Homer  was  a  vision,  an  imaginative  interpreta- 
tion of  life.  Early  science  had  been  inarticulate 
poetry ;  the  later  articulate  science  could  not  be  made 
back  into  poetry  except  by  an  imaginative  effort  of 
which  the  poets  of  that  time  were  incapable. 

The  extraordinary  and  long- continuing  popularity 
of  the  Phaenomena  and  Diosemeia  has  long  been  one  of 
the  puzzles  of  literary  criticism.  It  was  universal  in 
the  Hellenistic  world ;  it  was  equally  great  at  Rome. 
In  Cicero's  translation  not  less  than  in  the  original 
they  had  a  profound  influence  over  the  development 
of  the  poetical  art  of  Virgil.  They  were  a  model,  and 
more  than  a  model,  we  may  say  deliberately  a  source 
of  inspiration,  to  the  later  Augustans  like  Ovid  and 
Manilius.  In  the  next  generation  Germanicus  trans- 
lated them  anew,  and  they  were  still  being  re-studied 
and  re-translated  as  late  as  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  in  that  last  impulse  of  neo-Alexandrianism 
which  preceded  the  Dark  Ages.  The  clue  to  that 
extraordinary  influence  and  popularity  is  perhaps  to 


ARATUS  197 

be  found  where  one  would  not  at  first  think  of  looking 
for  it.  Quintilian,  summing  up  in  brief  chosen  words 
the  trained  judgment  of  Latin  criticism,  dismisses 
Aratus'  poetry  in  a  single  depreciating  sentence.  Motu 
caret,  he  says  of  it,  ut  in  qua  nulla  varietas,  nullus 
adfectus,  nulla  persona,  nulla  cuiusquam  sit  oratio.  It 
was  just  this  stillness  and  motionlessness,  this  absence 
of  play,  of  sentiment,  of  impersonation,  of  rhetoric,  that 
gave  the  work  of  Aratus  its  singular  effect  and  fascina- 
tion. Sentiment  and  rhetoric  and  impersonation  were 
the  stock-in-trade  of  later  Greek  literature,  and  con- 
tinued to  be  so  through  the  rest  of  the  classical  and 
sub-classical  period.  But  in  fact  the  world  was  more 
than  half  sick  of  them,  though  it  could  not  keep  its 
hands  off  them,  and  kept  returning  to  them  again  and 
again,  with  a  sort  of  involuntary  fascination.  In  the 
poetry  of  Aratus  it  felt  that  it  had  got  down  to  some- 
thing solid  and  wholesome,  poetry  in  its  lowest  terms 
perhaps,  but  poetry  that  had  got  its  feet  clear  of  rest- 
lessness, sentimentalism,  and  unreality.  The  mytho- 
logical episodes  in  the  Fhaenomena,  it  has  been  noticed, 
are  few  and  brief.  There  is  high  polish,  but  little 
ornament.  Aratus  may  be  pedantic,  but  he  is  not 
meretricious.  The  work  is  all  in  studiously  low  tones. 
In  a  period  of  forced  and  fatiguing  chromatic 
harmonies,  he  works  almost  in  monochrome.  In  a 
period  of  exaggerated  sensibility,  he  is  dry  and  hard. 
This  lowness  of  tone  suffices  in  the  careless  ordinary 
judgment  for  dismissing  him  as  no  poet,  because  devoid 
of  poetical  imagination.  It  is  difficult  to  be  sure  how 
far  it  is  in  fact  due  to  want  of  imagination,  and  how 


198  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

far  to  severity  of  method ;  whether  it  is  the  absence 
of  sensibility  or  the  reaction  against  it.  In  his  search 
after  something  in  poetry  that  should  not  be  mere 
ornamental  trifling,  he  discards  not  merely  the  egoism 
of  passion,  the  lax  demoralising  treatment  of  life  char- 
acteristic of  the  school  of  Euphorion,  but  the  human 
element  in  nature. 

To  produce  poetry  under  these  conditions  is  difficult ; 
but  the  difficulty  of  the  task,  as  Lucretius  said  later  of 
his  own  poem,  was  part  of  its  charm.  Only,  there  is 
this  difference,  and  it  is  vital :  that  in  Lucretius  the 
poet's  own  extraordinary  personality  kindles  his  whole 
work,  while  in  the  poetry  of  science  as  the  Alex- 
andrians conceived  it,  personality  has  to  be  suppressed 
and  eliminated.  This  was  with  them,  very  largely  at 
least,  a  reaction  against  the  dominance  of  Euripides. 
The  effect  of  Euripides  on  Greek  poetry  after  him, 
though  it  is  now  fully  realised,  has  perhaps  never  yet 
been  fully  worked  out,  particularly  as  regards  the 
movement  of  recoil  which  necessarily  follows  the  first 
effect  of  any  great  influence,  and  which  combines  with 
the  persistence  of  that  influence  to  create  conditions 
of  intricate  complexity.  At  all  events,  the  work  of 
Aratus  and  of  the  school  which  he  represents  gave  a 
stiffening  to  poetry  which  is  of  great  moment  in  its 
history.  The  term  stiffening  may  be  used  in  two 
senses,  good  and  bad,  and  both  senses  apply  here. 
But  if  we  look  to  the  end — if  we  look  to  Virgil, 
for  the  sake  of  whom,  one  would  like  to  say,  if  one 
could  say  it  without  being  misunderstood,  the  whole 
Alexandrian  school  existed — the  influence  of  Aratua 


THE   IONIAN   REVIVAL  199 

is  not  one  of  the  least  important  of  those  which  went 
to  create  the  marvel  of  the  Georgics. 

The  schools  of  poetry  represented  by  Euphorion  and 
Aratus  are  two  sides,  partly  antagonistic  and  partly 
complementary,  of  the  attempt  to  find  a  new  embodi- 
ment for  the  decentralised  and  disintegrated  life  of 
poetry.  But  neither  of  them  is  the  main  Alexandrian 
movement,  the  movement  which  was  central  so  far  as  we 
can  use  such  a  term  at  all  of  a  period  when  the  centre 
had  been  lost.  That  movement  is  more  closely  con- 
nected with  the  name  of  Callimachus.  It  had  begun 
to  take  shape  a  generation  earlier,  before  the  school  of 
Alexandria  had  been  fully  formed.  Its  beginnings 
were  in  an  Ionian  school  which  inherited  a  fragment 
of  the  intellectual  empire  of  Athens,  The  two 
originators  of  it  were  the  Colophonian  Antimachus 
and  the  Coan  Philetas. 

Too  little  of  the  work  of  these  poets  survives 
to  enable  us  to  form  any  full  judgment  of  its 
quality.  Antimachus  was  the  founder  of  the  new 
elegy,  in  which  the  Ionian  genius  returned,  with 
a  difference,  to  its  earlier  path  in  the  pre-Athenian 
period  of  Greece.  His  pupil  and  countryman  Herme- 
sianax  continued  his  work.  Professor  Murray  has 
made  a  fertile  suggestion,  which  I  hope  will  not  be 
allowed  by  him  to  drop,  that  the  long  fragment  of  this 
poet  preserved  in  Athenaeus  might  be  taken  as  a 
starting-point  for  the  investigation  and  elucidation  of 
Alexandrianism  as  a  matter  of  literary  history.  For 
the  study  of  Philetas  even  such  material  as  this 
fails:  we  may  guess  him  to  have  been  both  a  finer 


200  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

poet  and  a  more  interesting  personality  than  Anti- 
machus;  but  in  the  total  loss  of  his  works  we  know 
little  more  of  him  than  that  he  was  the  poetical 
master  not  only  of  Callimachus,  but  of  Theocritus.  It 
was  by  Antimachus  and  Philetas  that  poetry  was 
rescued,  so  far  as  it  was  rescued  at  all,  from  the 
decrepitude  into  which  it  had  fallen  among  debased 
dithyrambists  and  academic  dramatists.  Both  of  these 
forms  of  artificial  poetry  now  quickly  mouldered  away. 
The  dithyramb  became  a  negligible  form  of  poetry 
after  Timotheus;  of  the  tragic  Pleiad  of  Alexandria 
the  works  were  still-born  and  the  very  names  are 
uncertain.  By  the  middle  of  the  third  century  B.C., 
or  a  little  earlier,  the  new  poetry,  the  elegy,  had  come 
into  full  possession,  had  set  itself  to  rescue  the  salvage 
of  poetry  and,  so  far  as  might  be  possible,  to  refit  and 
refloat  the  stranded  vessel. 

By  his  official  position  as  well  as  by  the  volume  and 
quality  of  his  own  writings,  Callimachus  was  the 
recognised  head  among  contemporary  men  of  letters. 
Succeeding  to  the  headship  of  the  Alexandrian 
library  after  the  brief  occupancy  of  its  first  holder, 
Zenodotus,  he  held  it  for  something  like  forty  years. 
The  position  gave  him  the  titular  primacy  of  literature : 
it  enabled  him  to  organise  and  mould  literary  study,  to 
gather  round  him  associates  and  pupils,  to  found  a 
school,  and  even,  as  happened  with  Apollonius,  to 
proscribe  and  drive  into  a  sort  of  literary  exile  any 
other  poet  who  raised  the  standard  of  revolt  against 
his  authority.  But  he  gained  and  held  this  sort  of 
dictatorship  not  merely  through  his  official  position 


CALLIMACHUS    AND   HIS   SCHOOL     201 

and  the  court  favour  gained  him  by  his  adroit  flattery 
of  the  reigning  house.  His  position  rested  also,  as 
Dryden's  did  in  England,  on  accomplished  mastery  of 
his  art.  Elegiae  princeps  habetur  Callimachus,  the  terse 
phrase  of  Quintilian,  expresses  the  fact  that  he  was 
the  head  of  the  new  poetry.  Learning  and  high 
technical  skill  were  united  in  him  with  real  poetical 
genius.  The  author  of  the  irepl  "Yy^Aovg  calls  him 
aTTTooTog,  "  the  Faultless " :  he  was  the  Andrea  del 
Sarto  of  an  age  which  had  no  RafFaele  and  no  Michael 
Angelo.  His  poetry,  like  all  the  poetry  of  his  period, 
was  highly  artificial ;  but  then  all  poetry  is  highly 
artificial.  The  sneer  of  a  Roman  critic,  "  Read  Calli- 
machus if  you  wish  not  to  know  yourself,"  is  levelled 
not  at  any  particular  artificiality,  but  against  art :  its 
point  of  view  is  that  which  looks  on  poetry  not  as  an 
end  but  as  a  means,  as  a  handbook  to  practice,  not  as 
a  function  of  life. 

The  object  of  the  new  poetry,  of  the  elegy,  was  to 
get  poetry  back  into  some  kind  of  relation  with  what 
really,  here  and  now,  interested  people — what  people 
really  cared  for  and  thought  and  felt.  In  a  world 
where  all  old  boundaries  had  been  broken  up,  where 
all  old  ideals  had  receded  into  the  distance,  which  was 
floating  in  strange  seas  without  chart  or  pilot,  anything 
beyond  a  partial  and  fragmentary  success  in  this  task 
was  impossible.  The  shipwreck  of  Hellenic  life  had 
left  the  miraculous  and  splendid  achievement  of  Hel- 
lenic poetry  more  of  an  obsession  than  an  inspiration. 
The  price  that  has  to  be  paid  by  the  world  for  great 
art  is   that  it  overshadows  and  checks  new  growth. 


202  THE   ALEXANDRIANS 

Once  the  fullest  expression  of  life,  and  still  retaining 
indefinitely,  even  for  distant  ages  and  remote  countries, 
its  vitality  and  vivifying  power,  it  lies  on  the  genera- 
tions which  stand  next  to  it  with  a  weight  heavy 
as  frost.  When  we  are  disposed  to  think  of  the 
Callimachean  elegy  as  something  merely  academic, 
we  should  not  forget  that  among  the  most  char- 
acteristic utterances  of  Callimachus  are  his  attacks 
on  academicism ;  on  ''  those  cyclic  fellows  "  ^ — in  the 
phrase  used,  much  in  his  spirit,  by  a  later  poet  of 
the  school — who  wrote  lifeless  poetry,  imitative  in 
substance  and  conventional  in  diction.  He  was  the 
founder,  or  at  least  the  establisher,  of  a  new  con- 
vention himself;  but  what  is  most  important  about 
it  historically  is  not  that  it  was  academic,  but  that  it 
was  new. 

This  is  so  even  with  what  is  most  academic  in  his 
extant  work,  the  five  hymns.  These  are  an  adaptation 
of  an  old  form  to  new  uses ;  they  are  really  official 
odes,  and,  like  all  official  odes — even  those  written  by 
greater  poets,  by  Horace  or  by  Tennyson — have  a 
heavy  and  formal  quality,  scarcely  redeemed  by  their 
high  finish  or  by  their  particular  beauties  of  detail. 
At  the  end  of  the  Hymn  to  Apollo  is  the  celebrated 
passage  in  which  Callimachus  defends  his  own  poetical 
method,  one  of  fastidious  selection  and  concentration. 
The  draught  that  he  offers,  he  says,  is  a  quintessential 
distilment,  uKpov  awrov :  a  small  trickle  of  water,  but 
from  a  sacred  fountain,  pure  and  unsullied. 

1  PoUianus  in  Anth.  Pal.,  xi.  130.  The  author  of  this  epigram 
probably  belongs  to  the  neo-Alexandrian  revival  of  the  second  cen- 
tury A.D. 


THE   METHOD   OF   DISTILMENT      203 

The  word,  in  this  use,  and  the  idea  on  which  it  is 
based,  are  taken  by  him  from  Pindar :  cro^ta?  awrov 
oLKpov  KXvraig  eiriodv  poalari  l^vyev — "  the  essential  distil- 
ment  of  wisdom  linked  with  the  lordly  streams  of 
poetry" — this  is  the  quality  of  the  work  for  which 
Pindar,  in  the  seventh  Isthmian,  claims  the  sole  right 
to  immortality.  Both  poets  held  themselves  haughtily 
aloof  from  the  crowd ;  they  set  themselves  to  impose, 
not  to  follow,  a  fashion,  to  conquer  rather  than  to  woo 
fame.  In  the  Hymns  of  Callimachus  there  are  often 
phrases  and  passages  which  bear  out  the  claim  and 
substantiate  the  description. 

TroWcLKi^  €K  Tpot^rjvog  oXi^dvToio  '7roXl-)(vr]^ 
ep-^ojmevoi  ^l^cbvptjvSe  ^apwviKov  evSoOi  koXttov 
vavTai  eirecTKeyi^avTO  *  Ka\  e^  'E^Jo?/?  avioi/re^ 
01  iJ.ev  €T   ovK  tcov  avui, 

"  Often  from  Troezen  the  sea- crumbled  little  town, 
going  to  Ephyre,  within  the  Saronic  Gulf,  sailors 
sighted  it :  and  returning  from  Ephyre,  they  no  longer 
saw  it  there."  Like  that  mysterious  floating  island, 
the  vision  of  poetry  comes  to  Callimachus  in  glimpses 
and  then  disappears.  The  quality  for  which  the  Hymns 
may  still  be  prized  lies  in  these  glimpses,  in  the  fine 
and  sometimes  even  exquisite  vignettes  of  incident  or 
scenery.  Like  those  of  Horace,  they  have  a  curious 
effect  of  detachment ;  they  stand  out  sharp  in  a  glit- 
tering atmosphere,  and  the  interstices  between  them, 
as  with  Horace,  are  carefully  and  painstakingly  filled 
in  with  a  deliberate  workmanship  that  economises,  re- 
fines, and  arranges  a  material  reduced  to  narrow  limits 


204  THE    ALEXANDRIANS 

by  the  author's  fastidiousness,  by  an  instinct  for  rejec- 
tion which  almost  amounts  to  a  passion. 

In  the  epigram,  this  instinct  can  have  full  play ;  and 
the  epigrams  of  Callimachus  are  not  only  his  best  work, 
but  work  which  can  be  set  beside  the  best  of  any 
period.  Two  hundred  years  earlier,  when  lyric  poetry 
had  already  begun  to  harden,  this  form  of  poetry  had 
been  carried  to  its  highest  perfection  in  the  hands 
of  Simonides.  In  the  long  roll  of  the  Greek  epi- 
grammatists, a  succession  which  extends  from  first 
to  last  over  no  less  than  fifteen  or  sixteen  hundred 
years,  Callimachus  is  perhaps  the  second  name.  In 
both  poets,  it  is  the  epitaph  in  which  this  form  of 
poetry  reaches  its  most  complete  perfection.  The 
sepulcral  epigrams  of  Callimachus  have  not  only 
the  fineness  of  the  best  Greek  workmanship,  but  a 
depth  of  restrained  feeling,  a  clear  grave  beauty, 
which  makes  them,  in  the  full  meaning  of  the  words, 
both  Hellenic  and  classic.  In  them  at  least  his  own 
claim  for  his  poetry  is  justified ;  for  in  them  the  elegy, 
going  back  to  its  sources,  has  been  able  to  fill  these 
small  cups  with  living  water,  distilled  and  translucent. 

But  it  was  the  elegy  in  its  larger  scope  which  repre- 
sented the  main  body  of  Callimachus'  work,  and  by 
which  he  gave  so  marked  a  direction  to  the  develop- 
ment of  later  poetry.  In  this  sense  the  elegy  means  any- 
thing written  in  elegiac  verse ;  and  elegiac  verse  was  the 
chosen  medium  for  the  new  poetry.  In  the  hands  of 
the  early  Alexandrians  it  became  a  medium  of  quite 
extraordinary  flexibility  and  scope.  Even  the  English 
decasyllabic  couplet  hardly  approaches  it  in  plasticity 


THE   ALEXANDRIAN   ELEGY         205 

In  Greek,  when  once  its  mechanism  had  been  mastered, 
it  almost  writes  itself.  In  Latin  it  had  to  be  adapted, 
with  immense  labour  and  skill,  to  the  refractory- 
medium  of  a  language  whose  native  rhythms  were 
alien  from  it ;  but  even  so,  it  became,  and  remained, 
the  really  dominant  form  for  poetry.  The  heroic  hexa- 
meter stood  a  little  aloof  and  apart :  poetry  that  dealt, 
or  professed  to  deal,  with  life  more  directly  was  written 
in  elegiacs.  The  profound  effect  of  its  predominance 
lasted  right  down  to  modern  times.  The  chief  intel- 
lectual occupation  of  the  Middle  Ages,  it  has  been  said 
with  some  truth,  was  writing  enormous  quantities  of 
bad  Latin  verse;  and  the  bulk  of  that  verse  was  in 
elegiacs.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Renaissance,  except 
that  the  verse  then  ceased  to  be  bad.  In  all  the  arts, 
substance  and  medium  have  an  organic  interconnec- 
tion ;  and  the  forms  of  the  Callimachean  or  Alexandrian 
elegy  as  transplanted  into  Latin  have  affected  the 
whole  development  and  progress  of  European  poetry. 

Callimachus,  like  his  contemporaries,  applied  the  new 
vehicle  to  a  great  variety  of  subject  matter.  His  work 
extended  over  both  of  the  two  provinces  specifically 
represented  by  the  names  of  Euphorion  and  Aratus ; 
that  of  amatory  or  sentimental  poetry  on  the  one 
hand,  and  that  of  scientific  or  quasi-scientific  poetry 
on  the  other.  It  treated  largely  of  history  and  archae- 
ology, the  romance  of  the  Greek  past  as  it  was  con- 
ceived by  an  age  in  which  the  romantic  spirit  was 
feeble  and  heavily  overweighted  by  scholarship.  It 
seems  also  to  have  taken  a  large  range  over  the 
field  of  personal  life.     But   except  for  the  epigrams 


206  THE    ALEXANDRIANS 

his  elegiac  verse  is  nearly  all  lost.  The  Loutra 
Pallados,  a  piece  of  less  than  150  lines,  is  the  only 
substantial  fragment  which  survives.  Beyond  this  his 
elegies  are  only  known  to  us  indirectly  from  Latin 
imitations.  One  of  these,  the  Coma  Berenices  of 
Catullus,  is  not  merely  an  imitation  but  a  careful  and 
close  translation ;  and  it  enables  us  to  some  extent  to 
see  how  in  this  kind  of  poetry  Callimachus  followed 
the  middle  path  between  sentimentally  romantic  and 
drily  scientific  treatment  with  adroit  skill  and  with 
an  accent  of  delicate  irony.  The  Loutra  Pallados 
shows  poetical  power  of  a  remarkable  kind.  The 
workmanship  of  the  trained  artist  is  combined  in  it 
with  a  more  intimate  imaginative  quality  in  lines  and 
phrases,  "jewels  five  words  long,"  like  the  sudden  and 
sonorous  o-vplyycov  aiw  (pOoyyov  vira^oviov  ;  or  the  beau- 
tiful picture  flashed  out  in  four  words,  like  a  phrase  of 
Horace  at  his  best,  of  the  midday  stillness  on  Helicon, 
"  the  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills "  where 
Teiresias  meets  the  goddess — jULecra/uLepipa  S'  ef;^'  6po9 
acTv^la :  or  in  whole  passages  like  the  wail  of  Chariclo — 

r/  jULoi  Tov  Kwpov  epe^ag 
TTOTVia  ;  ToiavraL  Saijmoves  ecrre  d)iXai ; 

ojULfxaTd  juLoi  Tco  'jraiSog  acpelXeo '  tckvov  aXacrre 
eloeg  'AOaj/a/a?  a-raOea  Koi  Xayovag, 

aX\'  ovK  aeXiov  'jrdXiv  o\l/€ai '  (S  e/me  SeiXdv, 

<5   Op09,   (S  'EXlKCOVj    OVK  €Tl  JULOI    TTOLpLTe  ' 

ri  /j,€yaX    avT   oXiydiv  eirpd^ao  '  SopKag  oXea-crag 
Kai  irpoKag  ov  iroXXdg,  (pdea  TraiSog  l^ef?. 

Swinburne's  rendering  in  his   Tiresias,  sympathetic 
and  faithful  as  it  is,  comes  short,  as  all  translations 


THE   ELEGIAC   ACHIEVEMENT       207 

must,  of  communicating  the  full  poetical  quality  of 
the  original — 

O  holiest,  what  thing  hast  thou  done, 
What,  to  my  child  ?  woe's  me  that  see  the  thing  ! 
Is  this  thy  love  to  me-ward,  and  hereof 
Must  I  take  sample  how  the  Gods  can  love  ? 

O  child,  thou  hast  seen  indeed,  poor  child  of  mine, 
The  breasts  and  flanks  of  Pallas  bare  in  sight. 
But  never  more  shalt  see  the  dear  sun's  light. 

O  Helicon,  how  great  a  pay  is  thine  ! 

For  some  poor  antelopes  and  wild-deer  dead. 
My  child's  eyes  hast  thou  taken  in  their  stead. 

In  this  same  poem,  too,  we  can  see,  better  perhaps 
than  in  any  other  surviving  specimen,  the  delicate 
intonation,  the  long  periodic  movement,  the  sustained 
harmonies  of  which  the  Greek  elegiac  was  capable  in 
a  master-hand.  The  creation  of  verse  of  such  quality, 
such  melody  and  cadence,  was  in  itself  a  high  poetic 
achievement.  Among  the  Latins,  Propertius  alone 
mastered,  or  all  but  mastered,  its  secret.  It  died 
with  him  ;  but  the  conquest  which  the  elegiac  made 
of  half  the  field  of  Latin  poetry  shows  clearly  how 
alluring  and  entrancing  its  effect  was  upon  the  Italian 
ear  as  well  as  on  the  Italian  imagination. 


II 

THEOCRITUS  AND  THE  IDYL 

In  speaking  of  the  progress  of  Greek  poetry  after 
Athens,  I  have  laid  special  stress  on  a  fact  which  lies 
at  the  root  of  any  real  appreciation  of  what  that 
poetry  was,  of  what  it  meant  to  do,  and  what  it  did. 
The  Alexandrian  school  of  the  third  century  B.C.,  using 
that  term  in  its  largest  meaning,  was  occupied  with  a 
single  task.  Its  object  was  to  get  poetry  back  into 
relation  with  life.  The  older  Greek  poets  had  become 
the  classics.  The  life  which  they  interpreted  was  now 
the  life  of  a  past  world.  That  world  disappeared  in 
the  fourth  century  B.C.  The  new  and  larger  world 
which  had  absorbed  and  effaced  it  had  to  find  its  own 
poetry,  had  to  express  itself  if  it  could  in  the  forms  of 
a  new  art.  The  task  was  one  of  infinite  complexity 
and  difficulty.  For  the  centre  of  life  had  been  lost. 
The  Macedonian  conquests  threw  it  adrift.  In  the 
vast  military  monarchies  which  parcelled  out  among 
themselves  a  superficially  Hellenised  world,  there  was 
nowhere  any  real  centre,  nowhere  any  clear  ideal.  A 
new  imaginative  interpretation  of  life  was  sought  with 
great  assiduity  in  many  directions.  It  was  nowhere 
completely  found;  and  even  in  the  golden  age  of 
Alexandrianism,  the  age  of  Callimachus  and  Euphorion 


THE  LAST   GREEK   CLASSIC         209 

and  Aratus,  the  Alexandrians  are  not  classics  in  the 
full  sense.  They  did  what  they  could,  and  handed 
over  the  task  for  completion  to  another  language,  a 
separate  race,  a  different  genius.  Rome  conquered  and 
annexed  the  Alexandrian  kingdoms ;  and  the  Roman 
genius,  building  on  the  laborious  Alexandrian  founda- 
tions, produced  the  Latin  classics. 

But  when  we  say  that  the  Alexandrian  age  pro- 
duced no  classics,  one  exception  is  generally  made, 
and  not  without  reason.  Theocritus,  alike  in  histories 
of  literature,  in  the  general  working  estimate  of 
scholars,  and  in  the  appreciation  of  lovers  of  poetry,  is 
included  in  the  roll  of  the  classical  Greek  poets.  He 
did  once  more  for  the  last  time  what  the  artistry 
of  the  Greek  genius  had  done  so  often  in  its  great 
days;  he  created,  and  brought  to  perfection,  a  new 
kind  of  poetry,  which  alike  in  form  and  substance 
presented  a  new  pattern  of  life.  Before  him,  the 
pastoral,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term,  hardly  existed : 
after  him  and  down  to  the  present  day,  it  has  been 
a  substantive  form  of  poetry,  co-ordinate  with  the 
epic  and  romance,  with  the  lyric  and  the  drama. 
And  that  form  has  been  more  than  once  of  the 
utmost  importance  in  the  general  evolution  of  poetry ; 
in  Virgil  and  the  Virgilians ;  in  the  poetry  of  the 
romantic  Middle  Ages ;  in  the  later  sixteenth  century 
throughout  Western  Europe;  and  in  the  whole  of 
that  more  modern  poetry  which  derives  from  the 
sixteenth  century  by  direct  inheritance. 

The  name  which  represents  most  fully  the  central 
force    and    movement  of  Alexandrian  poetry  is  not 

o 


210  THEOCRITUS 

Theocritus,  but  Callimachus.  The  two  poets  were 
contemporaries,  and  both  were  really  working  on 
kindred  lines  and  with  the  same  object.  But  Calli- 
machus is  not  a  living  poet  in  the  same  sense  as 
Theocritus  is.  Partly  this  is  due  to  the  mere  fact 
— the  accidental  fact,  as  we  say  of  things  for  which 
we  cannot  assign  any  definite  reason — that  so  little  of 
his  work  is  extant,  and  so  large  a  proportion  of  that 
little  is  not  Callimachus  at  his  best.  But  the  main 
reason  is  one  more  vital;  it  is  that  the  genius  of 
Theocritus,  in  ranging  over  the  field  of  life,  as  all 
the  Alexandrians  did,  to  rediscover  and  reincarnate 
poetry,  struck  on  and  seized  the  specific  province  of 
the  pastoral.  He  saw  the  value  of  this  new  method ; 
he  developed  it  with  immense  skill  and  beauty.  And 
so,  while  he  is  properly  speaking  an  idylist,  and  while 
half  of  his  extant  poetry  is  not  pastoral  at  all,  it  is  as 
a  pastoral  poet,  as  the  first  and  greatest  of  the  pastoral 
poets,  that  he  is  universally  and  rightly  known.  In 
him  the  pastoral  became  classic  :  and  that  was  the  last 
transmutation  which  the  spirit  of  poetry  took  fully 
and  with  complete  success  in  Greek  hands  before  she 
passed  westward  from  the  Greek  world. 

The  Greek  world  and  the  Roman  world  are  diiferent 
worlds  poetically  just  as  they  were  different  in  history. 
But  in  both  cases  they  overlap  and  intermingle;  and 
in  both  cases  the  Greater  Greece  beyond  the  seas,  as 
it  was  called  with  a  sort  of  accidental  prophecy,  Sicily 
and  Southern  Italy,  was  where  their  boundaries  first 
intersected.  It  has  always  been  the  fortune  of 
Sicily,  from  its  mere  geographical  position,  like  that 


SICILY  211 

of  an  eddy  at  the  conflux  of  meeting  tides,  to 
occupy  an  ambiguous  but  cardinal  place  in  the 
history  of  civilisation.  It  became  a  link,  a  stepping- 
stone,  between  Greece  and  Rome :  and  once  more,  in 
the  strange  revolutions  of  history,  was  a  seed-ground 
many  centuries  later ;  for  it  was  there  that  the  com- 
plex hybridisation  took  place  among  Norman,  Arab, 
and  Italian  elements  which  gave  the  decisive  impulse 
towards  the  creation  of  Italian  poetry  in  the  hands 
of  Dante  and  his  successors.  In  the  history  of  ancient 
poetry,  the  pastoral  is  its  one  specific  and  unique 
creation.  But  long  before  the  time  of  Theocritus  the 
Sicilian  genius  had  been  a  factor  in  that  history  of  no 
small  importance.  Just  at  the  centre  of  the  lyric  age 
and  before  the  vital  energies  of  Greek  poetry  had 
concentrated  on  Athens,  Stesichorus  and  the  school 
of  poets  who  bore  his  name  appear,  so  far  as  can  be 
judged  from  the  few  surviving  fragments  and  the  scanty 
notices  of  later  writers,  to  have  gone  far,  and  in  a 
very  curious  way,  towards  anticipating  the  work  of 
the  Alexandrians.  Stesichorus  himself  was  definitely 
a  precursor  of  Theocritus.  He  remoulded  the  material 
of  the  epic  under  an  idyllic  or  quasi-lyrical  treatment. 
Among  his  poems  are  quoted  instances  of  nearly  all 
the  kinds,  other  than  the  pastoral,  which  are  extant  in 
Theocritus'  own  works :  encomia,  epithalamia,  epyllia, 
erotica ;  and  even  the  pastoral  itself  seems  to  have  taken 
its  beginnings,  in  some  sense,  with  him.  His  Daphnis 
is  only  a  name,  but  there  is  evidence  enough  to  assure 
us  that  it  is  the  name  of  one  who  was  the  direct 
ancestor  of  the  Theocritean  figure — the  patron  saint, 


212  THEOCRITUS 

one  might  call  him,  of  the  Sicilian  pastoral — which 
reappears  in  Theocritus  himself  and  in  Virgil. 

Even  when  the  main  impulse  of  poetry  concentrated 
itself  on  Athens,  the  Sicilian  school  continued  a 
separate  existence  and  retained  a  native  individuality. 
Aeschylus,  Simonides,  Pindar,  all  found  their  way  to 
the  court  of  Syracuse,  not  only  because  of  the  material 
rewards  it  offered,  but  because  they  found  there  a  rich 
literary  culture,  a  stimulating  poetical  atmosphere. 
Throughout  the  fifth  century  B.C.  the  Sicilian  drama, 
in  the  comedies  of  Epicharmus  and  the  mimes  of 
Sophron  and  Xenarchus,  was  working  on  independent 
lines  towards  a  popular  realistic  art  which  bore  affinity 
to  Italian  no  less  than  to  Greek.  Epicharmus,  though 
he  spent  most  of  his  life  at  the  Sicilian  Megara  or  at 
Syracuse,  was  born  in  Cos,  the  Dorian  island  which  was 
the  home,  or  one  of  the  homes,  possibly  the  birthplace 
and  certainly  the  poetical  school,  of  Theocritus  himself; 
and  which  curiously  enough  became  also,  long  after- 
wards, the  home  of  one  who  has  been  called  the  last 
of  the  Greek  poets,  the  Syrian  Meleager. 

Stesichorus  was  the  first  of  the  romantics,  Sophron  the 
first  of  the  realists ;  or  at  least  we  may  say  so  in  order 
to  emphasise  their  quality,  if  we  take  care  to  remem- 
ber that  such  generalisations  are  always  much  too 
sweeping.  This  was  the  specific  impress  of  Sicily 
upon  Greek  poetry;  and  in  Theocritus  it  is  the 
subtle  intermixture  of  the  two  qualities  which  gives 
his  poetry  its  peculiar  charm  and  its  vast  historical 
importance.  The  return  to  nature  took  with  him 
as  with  his  contemporaries  two  forms.     First,  it  was 


THE    SICILIAN   TRADITION  213 

a  sustained  attempt  to  translate  the  old  motives,  the 
traditional  subjects,  of  poetry  into  modern  terms,  to 
re-create  or  re-envisage  them  in  the  surroundings  of 
modern  art,  modern  surroundings,  a  modern  attitude 
towards  life.  Secondly,  it  was  an  attempt  which  they 
all  to  some  degree  shared,  but  which  Theocritus 
pursued  with  more  skill  and  felicity  than  the  rest, 
to  bring  the  common  things  of  life,  its  occupations, 
studies,  amusements,  the  middle-class  range  of  thought 
and  sentiment  and  emotion,  within  the  sphere  of 
poetry.  The  note  of  the  whole  Alexandrian  period 
is  the  emergence  of  the  middle  classes.  Wealth  and 
commerce  were  diffused  ;  art  was  popularised ;  science, 
physical,  historical,  and  mental,  was  widely  cultivated. 
Government  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  trained 
bureaucracies.  Hellas  had  created  the  state  and 
the  individual,  and  had  perished  in  the  task.  Life 
was  thrown  back  upon  itself  to  find  fresh  motives 
and  outlets.  The  morning-glories,  the  ardours  of 
midday  were  over.  Poetry  had  to  find  new  patterns, 
had  to  attach  itself  as  it  could  to  a  life  that  lay, 
swarming  and  monotonous,  flat  amid  immense  horizons, 
in  the  endless  aimless  afternoon. 

Poetry  had  to  do  this  or  die.  The  new  world  of  the 
Hellenistic  monarchies  was  a  misfit ;  the  times,  in  that 
metaphor  of  Hamlet's  which  is  so  perpetually  quoted 
that  it  has  almost  lost  all  definite  meaning,  were  out 
of  joint,  and  the  dislocation  had  to  be  reduced  before 
the  organism  could  reassume  its  functions.  The 
sudden  expansion  of  the  Greek  world  had  been  effected 
through    a    process    which    left    every  joint    racked. 


214  THEOCRITUS 

Throughout  Theocritus,  explicitly  in  the  more  personal 
poems,  here  and  there  in  vivid  touches  among  them 
all,  we  feel  the  bewildering  sense,  the  overwhelming 
pressure,  of  an  over-expanded  world.  The  wealth 
of  the  East  was  pouring  into  Europe  through  Egypt 
and  Syria.  The  states  of  Greater  Greece  overseas 
were  in  fierce  competition  with  Carthage  for  the 
control  of  the  immense  commerce  of  the  West,  in 
which  the  Roman  Republic,  now  the  mistress  of 
Central  Italy,  was  stretching  downward  and  outward 
to  claim  its  share.  The  world  was  externally  governed 
by  the  rulers  of  vast  states  controlling  huge  trained 
armies;  what  ultimately  governed  these  was  the 
growing  power  of  the  plutocracy.  Population  was 
aggregated  in  swollen  cities,  and  the  latifundia  were 
everywhere  becoming  the  dominant  feature  of  the 
world  outside  the  cities.  The  scene  painted  by  a  dex- 
terous hand,  whether  that  of  Theocritus  or  not,  in  the 
twenty-fifth  Idyl,  the  Heracles  Leontophoms,  though  laid 
in  Elis,  is  not  a  picture  of  the  Elis  of  small  country 
squires  like  Xenophon ;  it  is  that  of  a  latifundium  in 
the  full  sense,  an  immense  stretch  of  tillage  and  pas- 
turage cultivated  by  slaves,  who  "  live  in  long  rows  of 
huts,  guarding  the  great  and  unspeakable  wealth  of 
their  master."  "  All  this  plain,"  says  the  ploughman, 
"  is  held  by  Augeias,  wheat-bearing  tilth  and  orchards 
and  uplands,  over  all  which  lands  we  go  labouring  the 
whole  day  long  as  thralls  have  to  do."  At  evening 
"  the  cattle  come  in,  ten  thousand  upon  ten  thousand, 
showing  for  multitude  like  the  watery  clouds  that  roll 
forward  in  heaven,  and  countless  are  they  and  cease- 


THE    EXPANDED    WORLD  215 

less  in  their  passage :  the  whole  plain  was  filled  and  all 
the  driftways.  None  would  have  deemed  or  believed 
that  the  substance  of  one  man  could  be  so  vast."  ^ 
Syracuse,  the  centre  of  Sicilian  poetry,  had  grown  to 
its  utmost  height  of  wealth,  population,  and  splendour. 
Sixty  thousand  immigrants  had  poured  into  it  ^fter 
the  downfall  of  the  despotism  of  Dionysius  II.,  and 
it  grew  more  and  more  prosperous  and  wealthy 
through  the  long  reign  of  Hiero,  which  was  devoted 
throughout  to  the  task  of  its  material  development, 
under  a  commercial  and  economic  system  unrivalled 
till  then  in  the  ancient  world.  Alexandria,  the  chief 
centre  of  the  new  poetry  as  it  was  of  the  whole  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  period,  was,  like  ancient  Babylon  or 
Nineveh,  or  modern  London,  the  metropolis  of  a  vast 
empire.  It  had  a  population  approaching  a  million. 
The  dominions  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  stretched  up 
into  the  Aegean,  and  southward  "  ten  leagues  beyond 
mans  life,"  far  into  the  mysterious  Sudan,  to  lands 
"whence,"  in  Theocritus'  own  vivid  phrase, "the Nile  is  no 
longer  visible."  ^  "  Countless  are  the  lands,  and  tribes  of 
men  innumerable  win  increase  of  the  soil,  waxing  under 
the  rain  of  God.  All  the  sea  and  land  and  sounding 
rivers  are  under  the  sway  of  Ptolemy;  many  are  his 
horsemen,  many  his  footmen  that  march  gleaming  in 
bronze  under  shield;  and  in  wealth  he  outweighs  all 
kings."  ^  Ptolemy,  according  to  the  prose  records  of 
historians,  maintained  an  army  as  large  as  that  of 
the  whole    Roman   empire ;    two    hundred    thousand 

1  Theocr.  xxv.  23-25,  29-33,  88-97,  115-117. 

2  Theocr.  vii.  114,  Trirpg,  Giro  BXefxijuv,  8dev  omiri  NctXos  oparSs. 

3  Theocr.  xvii.  77  foil. 


216  THEOCRITUS 

infantry,  forty  thousand  cavalry,  war-chariots  and  war- 
elephants,  fifteen  hundred  sail  of  the  line.  He  left 
£200,000,000  in  the  treasury  at  his  death;  and  this 
was  after  a  reign  of  lavish  and  continuous  expenditure. 
The  description  of  the  splendours  of  the  yearly  Adonis- 
festival  of  Alexandria,  provided  at  the  royal  expense, 
in  the  Adoniazusae  idyl,  falls  far  short  of  the  historical 
record  given  by  Callixenus  ^  of  a  coronation  feast.  It 
fatigues  the  imagination  by  its  picture  of  overwhelming 
wealth  and  magnificence. 

Commerce  and  peace — the  peace  that  commerce 
secures  for  itself  when  politics  are  the  business  of 
court  chancelleries  and  war  has  become  a  paid  pro- 
fession— had  made  intercommunication  easy  through- 
out the  Mediterranean  world  and  far  beyond  it. 
Nationality  almost  ceased  to  exist.  We  cannot  tell 
with  most  of  the  poems  of  Theocritus  whether  they 
were  written  in  Sicily,  or  in  Cos,  or  at  Alexandria.  A 
voyage  from  Syracuse  to  Miletus  is  spoken  of  in  the 
twenty-eighth  Idyl  as  quite  an  ordinary  thing.  In  the 
fourth,  mention  is  casually  made  of  a  herdsman  going 
off  from  his  pasture  in  Southern  Italy  to  visit  the 
Olympic  games.  In  the  fourteenth — the  scene  here  is 
probably  also  in  Southern  Italy,  but  unidentifiable — 
the  company  of  four  who  meet  for  a  merry-making 
include  an  Argive,  a  Thessalian  from  Larissa,  and  a 
mercenary  who  has  no  country  at  all  and  is  merely 
called  "  the  soldier."  One  of  the  interlocutors,  who  is 
in  despair  because  his  young  woman  has,  for  quite  suffi- 
cient reason,  run  away  from  him,  is  recommended  to 
1  Quoted  by  Athenaeus,  v.  25-35. 


THE   THEOCRITEAN   ENVIRONMENT     217 

be  off  at  once  to  Egypt  and  enlist  there,  for  all  the 
world  as  if  it  were  a  barrack-yard  in  his  own  county 
town.  The  tone  and  spirit  in  this  scene  are  quite  mid- 
Victorian  ;  one  seems  to  hear  a  young  provincial 
Englishman  of  the  fifties  being  advised  to  emigrate  to 
Australia;  and  there  is  the  same  feeling  that  in 
distant  lands  one  will  find  change  indeed,  and  new 
chances,  but  the  same  sort  of  life  fundamentally,  and 
the  same  sort  of  people  as  at  home.  It  was  even  thus 
that  Gigadibs — for  different  reasons  of  course — in  or 
about  the  year  1854,  took  the  sudden  resolution  of 
going  off  to  New  Zealand.  Tennyson  himself  had  very 
nearly  done  the  same  thing. 

Such  was  the  world  of  Theocritus :  immense,  well- 
policed,  monotonous ;  penetrated  through  and  through 
by  commercialism ;  pleasant  for  the  well-to-do,  and 
not  unbearable  for  the  poor,  whose  life  in  the 
country  had  its  simple  amusements,  and  for  whom 
the  great  towns  provided  endless  shows,  public  doles, 
and  pageants ;  the  seat  of  a  widespread  if  superficial 
culture  among  the  professional  classes,  who  were  con- 
tinually increasing  in  numbers  and  importance ;  full  of 
distinguished  men  of  science,  fuller  still  of  clever  and 
facile  artists;  shaken  from  time  to  time  by  dynastic 
wars,  but  pursuing  its  way  through  these,  on  the 
whole,  unchanged.  That  was  the  environment ;  that 
was  the  life  with  which  poetry  had,  somehow  or  other, 
to  get  itself  into  relation. 

"  The  trial-task  of  criticism,"  says  Pater  in  well-con- 
sidered words,  "  in  regard  to  literature  and  art  no  less 
than  to  philosophyf  begins  exactly  where  the  estimate 


218  THEOCRITUS 

of  general  conditions,  of  the  conditions  common  to  all 
the  products  of  this  or  that  particular  age — of  the 
*  environment '  —  leaves  off,  and  we  touch  what  is 
unique  in  the  individual  genius  which  contrived,  after 
all,  by  force  of  will,  to  have  his  own  masterful  way 
with  that  environment."  It  is  to  the  individual  genius 
of  Theocritus  that  we  must  now  turn ;  and  genius  is  a 
word  fully  due  to  a  poetical  faculty  which,  out  of  these 
unpromising  materials  and  in  that  prosaic  age,  created 
a  new  kind  of  poetry  and  found  a  new  imaginative 
value  in  life. 

The  Idyls  of  Theocritus — as  was  the  case  with  the 
poetry  of  some  of  his  contemporaries  also — are  very 
various  and  not  easily  classifiable.  Their  variety  is 
partially  hid  by  a  certain  obvious  and  superficial  like- 
ness due  to  the  fact  that  with  but  few  exceptions  they 
are  written  in  hexameter  This  gives  them  no  real 
unity,  no  common  poetical  quality,  any  more  than  is 
given  them  by  the  name  of  Idyls.  The  term  Idyl  is 
indeed  sometimes  loosely  used  as  equivalent  to  pastoral; 
but  such  a  use  only  leads  to  confusion.  The  word 
idyllion  seems  to  have  been  coined  at  this  period  and 
for  this  particular  purpose.  It  is  a  diminutive  formed 
from  the  word  efi^o?,  which,  originally  signifying  look  or 
visible  appearance,  had,  as  prose  developed,  gradually 
become  (like  the  Latin  species)  an  abstract  term,  and 
then,  by  one  of  those  curious  reversions  from  the 
abstract  to  the  concrete  which  are  common  in  any 
new  terminology  that  has  to  be  invented  for  science, 
acquired  the  meaning,  first  found  in  medical  writers, 
of  any  rare  and  costly  substance ;  the  sense  in  which 


IDYLLIC   POETRY  219 

the  Latin  species  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  word 
spice.  A  book  of  idyls  was  simply  a  collection  of 
poems  on  a  small  scale,  finely  wrought  and  precious. 
The  idea  is  the  same  as  was  in  the  minds  of  our 
Elizabethans,  only  expressed  by  them  with  their  usual 
exorbitance  of  language,  when  they  gave  collections 
such  titles  as  a  Gorgeous  Gallery  of  Gallant  Inventions, 
or  a  Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices,  or  a  Banquet  of  Dainty 
Conceits ;  or  it  is  a  variant  of  the  common  metaphor 
by  which  (as  in  the  Emaux  et  Camdes  of  Th^ophile 
Gautier)  poetry  of  this  sort  is  described  in  the  terms 
of  jewellery.  A  nearer  analogy  still  may  perhaps  be 
found  in  the  art  of  painting.  Idyllia  are  cabinet- 
pictures  ;  small  in  size,  highly  finished,  detachable,  not 
imagined  and  executed  as  elements  in  any  large  con- 
structive scheme  of  imaginative  decoration,  yet  each 
holding  its  tiny  convex  mirror  up  to  nature,  each 
bringing  art  for  a  moment  into  relation  with  one  facet 
or  mood  of  life. 

Greek  criticism  had,  with  that  just  instinct  which 
makes  so  many  of  its  judgments  permanently  valid, 
distinguished  three  main  kinds  of  poetry:  lyric,  epic, 
and  dramatic.  The  idyllic  method,  in  the  hands  of 
Theocritus,  was  applied  to  the  material  of  all  three, 
following  to  a  considerable  extent  at  least  the  specific 
bent  which  had  been  given  to  each  by  his  Sicilian 
predecessors.  His  epic  idyls  derive  in  spirit  from 
Stesichorus,  both  being  based  on  the  romantic  and 
modern  treatment  of  scenes  from  the  traditional  body 
of  epic  story.  His  dramatic  idyls  derive  similarly 
from  the  native  Sicilian  drama,  the  comedies  and  the 


220  THEOCRITUS 

mimes.  There  are  also  idyls  in  the  collection  which 
are  lyrical  or  quasi-lyrical.  But  between  these  and 
the  dramatic  idyls  there  is  no  certain  line  of  demar- 
cation. All  poetry  which  deals  with  emotion  tends 
to  become  lyrical;  and  all  poetry  which  deals  with 
action  tends  to  become  dramatic.  We  speak  habitually 
and  quite  rationally  of  the  lyrical  quality  of  scenes  in 
a  drama  or  even  passages  in  a  narrative  poem ;  and 
no  less  so  of  the  dramatic  quality  of  both  lyrics  and 
epics. 

Upon  this  groundwork  then,  already  so  complex, 
Theocritus  superinduced  two  more  factors:  first  the 
elegiac,  the  poetry  of  reflection  and  sentiment,  which 
was  common  to  him  with  his  whole  age — the  elegy, 
as  I  have  already  said,  being  the  specific  central 
form  in  which  the  main  current  of  Alexandrian  poetry 
ran — and  secondly  his  own  creation,  the  pastoral.  All 
these  are  intertwined,  shot  through,  fused  into  a  poetical 
product  of  singularly  varied,  elusive,  and  iridescent 
beauty,  yapiearepov  t^  iroiKiXla^  in  the  apt  words  of  an 
ancient  commentator.  But  also  throughout  his  work 
— and  this  is  what  makes  him  the  last  of  the  Greek 
classics — there  is  the  fineness  of  edge,  the  purity  of 
line,  the  delicate  precision  of  modelling,  which  are  the 
qualities  of  authentic  Greek  art. 

When  Tennyson,  in  issuing  his  collected  poems, 
gave  the  general  title  of  English  Idyls  to  the  pieces 
which  he  added  to  the  second  volume  of  the  Poems  of 
1842  and  to  some  others  in  the  same  manner  written 
or  published  later,  he  used  the  name  (as  he  used 
language  always)  with  precise  accuracy  and   with   a 


THEOCRITUS   AND   TENNYSON      221 

complete  understanding  of  its  Greek  meaning.  Here 
as  elsewhere  lie  showed  himself  not  only  a  poet  but 
a  critic  of  unrivalled  insight  and  judgment.  These 
pieces,  written  for  the  most  part  in  blank  verse  as  the 
idyls  of  Theocritus  are  written  in  hexameters,  extend 
over  the  same  sort  of  range  and  adopt  the  same  sort  of 
treatment.  They  include  specimens  of  the  dramatic, 
the  lyric,  and  epic  idyl ;  and  also  (as  in  Theocritus) 
idyls  which  are  in  a  mixed  manner  and  cannot  be 
classed  definitely  under  any  sub-head.  Aiidley  Court 
is  an  English  analogue  of  the  seventh  idyl  of  Theo- 
critus, the  Thalysia,  Walking  to  the  Mail  gives  a 
picture  in  finished  verse  of  commonplace  country  talk, 
reproduced  in  detail  with  all  its  inconsequence  and 
vulgarity,  yet  with  a  faint  gleam  over  it  which  some- 
how or  other  makes  it  into  poetry.  In  this  quality 
it  is  exactly  like  the  fourth  idyl,  the  Battus  and  Corydon. 
The  Golden  Year,  a  lyric  idyl  in  an  incidental  rustic 
setting,  bears  an  equally  close  analogy  to  several  idyls, 
such  as  the  sixth,  the  Bucoliastae ;  and  Edwin  Morris, 
which  might  be  called  the  sketch  of  a  novel  of  ordinary 
life  treated  in  the  idyllic  manner,  has  also  its  analogy 
in  a  piece  doubtfully  attributed  to  Theocritus  and 
certainly  of  his  school  and  in  his  manner,  the  Urastes, 
the  twenty-third  in  the  old  numbering.  Bora,  an 
idyllic  narrative  of  rural  life,  shows  the  tendency  of 
the  idyl  to  break  its  bounds ;  it  points  forward  to  the 
longer  poems  in  the  same  manner,  Bnoch  Arden  or 
Aylmers  Field,  where  the  enriched  idyllic  treatment  is 
applied  on  a  larger  scale,  and  not  perhaps  with  the 
most  successful  result ;  for  in  these  poems  one  cannot 


222  THEOCRITUS 

but  feel  that  the  balance  between  subject  and  treat- 
ment is  on  the  point  of  being  lost,  and  the  rule  of  the 
half  being  more  than  the  whole  is  being  forgotten.  Of 
the  lyric  idyl  in  Tennyson's  hands  there  are  several 
exquisite  specimens  in  that  medley,  as  Tennyson  him- 
self very  straightforwardly  called  it,  the  FriTwess.  "  A 
small  sweet  idyl"  is  the  name  he  expressly  gives 
himself  to  the  piece  there  beginning,  Come  down,  0  maid, 
from  yonder  mountain  height:  it  is  like  the  songs  of 
Thyrsis  or  Lycidas  in  Theocritus.  A  still  more  famous 
example,  and  completely  in  the  Theocritean  manner, 
is  Tears,  idle  tears,  where  the  style,  the  movement,  the 
enriched,  subtilised,  and  refracted  embodiment  of 
emotion,  though  applied  to  a  different  subject,  are 
precisely  those  of  the  twelfth  idyl.  Once  more, 
Godiva  is  an  accurate  reproduction  or  reincarnation — 
to  call  it  an  imitation  would  be  misleading — of  the 
shorter  epyllion,  as  we  have  it  for  instance  in  the 
twenty-sixth  idyl  (of  uncertain  authorship)  dealing 
with  the  legend  of  Pentheus  and  Agave. 

Among  his  English  Idyls,  and  at  the  head  of  them, 
Tennyson  placed  his  Morte  d' Arthur,  Once  more,  his 
critical  judgment  here  was  perfect.  He  speaks  of  it, 
true,  or  makes  its  imaginary  author  "  the  poet  Everard 
Hall"  speak  of  it,  as  the  fragment  of  an  epic  con- 
demned by  his  own  better  judgment. 

He  burnt 
His  epic,  his  King  Arthur,  some  twelve  books : 
He  thought  that  nothing  new  was  said,  or  else 
Something  so  said  'twas  nothing — that  a  truth 
Looks  freshest  in  the  fashion  of  the  day. 


THE   ENGLISH   IDYL  223 

It  pleased  me  well  enough.     *  Nay,  nay,*  said  Hall, 
*  Why  take  the  style  of  those  heroic  times  ? 
For  nature  brings  not  back  the  Mastodon, 
Nor  we  those  times  ;  and  why  should  any  man 
Remodel  models  ?  these  twelve  books  of  mine 
Were  faint  Homeric  echoes,  nothing-worth.' 

How  far  this  passage  represents  actual  fact,  how  far 
merely  the  thoughts  that  passed  through  Tennyson's 
mind,  is  irrelevant.  The  fact  remains  that  the  scene 
or  episode,  treated  in  the  idyllic  manner,  and  thus 
brought  into  a  fresh  relation  alike  to  the  older  poetry 
and  to  the  life  of  the  modern  world,  is  what  the  early 
Alexandrian  and  the  early  Victorian  poet  alike  in- 
stinctively sought  after  as  the  substance  of  a  new 
poetry. 

When  Tennyson  resumed  or  continued  the  subject, 
it  was  still  in  the  idyllic  mode  of  treatment.  The 
Idyls  of  the  King  is  a  title  carefully  chosen  and  sig- 
nificant. He  finally  wrought  them  into  a  more  or 
less  complete  cycle,  not  a  single  poem  even  then,  but 
a  single  body  of  poetry — or  so  he  wished  them  to 
be — The  Idyls  of  the  King,  in  Twelve  Books,  according 
to  the  title  which  he  finally  gave  them  himself. 
But  an  idyllic  cycle  is  not  an  epic.  The  idyl  and 
the  epic  are  at  the  two  opposite  ends  of  the  world 
of  poetry ;  it  is  a  sort  of  symbol  of  this  that  Greek 
classical  poetry  begins  with  the  one  and  ends  with  the 
other. 

The  lines  of  prologue  and  epilogue  between  which 
the  Morte  d' Arthur  is  framed  are  also  just  such  as 
Theocritus  might  have  written ;  not  least  the  curious 
line  in  the  epilogue  about  "  King  Arthur  like  a  modern 


224  THEOCRITUS 

gentleman."  The  attempt  in  both  cases  is  to  give  new 
life  to  poetry  by  bringing  the  subjects  of  poetry  into 
a  fresh  touch  with  the  actual  modern  world.  In  both 
cases  it  was  an  attempt  made  rather  wearily,  and 
after  all  with  imperfect  success  so  far  as  its  main 
object  was  concerned. 

Even  the  words  in  which  the  two  poets  express 
themselves  with  regard  to  the  function  of  their  own 
poetry,  its  possibilities,  its  limitations,  its  discourage- 
ments, are  often  remarkably  alike,  sometimes  all  but 
identical.  In  the  sixteenth  idyl,  the  Hiero^  Theocritus, 
speaking  in  his  own  person,  expresses  himself  with 
regard  to  modern  poetry  exactly,  down  to  very  turns 
of  phrase,  as  Tennyson  does  over  and  over  again. 
For  both  the  Muses  speak  "  with  darkened  brow  " — 
(TKvCpiiievaL — or  sit  silent  with  heads  bowed  over  chill 
knees  and  unshod  feet.  "  I  was  born  too  late,"  cries 
the  poet  in  the  Golden  Year — 

A  tongue-tied  poet  in  the  feverous  days 

That,  setting  the  how  much  before  the  how, 

Cry,  like  the  daughters  of  the  horse-leech,  "  Give  "  : 

echoing  the  words  of  his  Greek  predecessor,  ov  yap  eV 
avSpeg  w?  irapo's  ea-OXots  alvecaOai  (TTrevSovriy  veviKtjvrai  S^ 
viro  KepSecDv.  To  both  it  seemed  in  their  moods  of  dis- 
couragement, "  far  better  to  be  born  to  labour  and  the 
mattock-hardened  hand,"  coo-el  ng  /maKeXa  reTvXwjULepog 
evSoOi  X'^^P^^-  "  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^  letters,  overdone,  had 
swamped  the  sacred  poets  with  themselves " :  there 
was  no  welcome  for  them  left :  rig  Se  kcv  aWov  aKovcrai ; 
aXi9  -TTOLvrecra-iv  ''O/mtjpog.  Yet  that  discouragement  was 
only  a  mood,  and  they  felt  the  joy  of  their  art.     '*  But 


TENNYSONIANISM  225 

we,"    Tennyson    says    in    the    epilogue   to    the    Morte 

d' Arthur, 

Sat  rapt :  it  was  the  tone  with  which  he  read — 
Perhaps  some  modern  touches  here  and  there 
Redeem'd  it  from  his  charge  of  nothingness — 
Or  else  we  loved  the  man  and  prized  his  work. 

So  too  Theocritus  strikes  the  same  note :  h  Se  KoXevvTwv 
Oapcrricrag  M.oLcrata'L  orvv  a/mere pai(riv  loiiuLav — "  To  those 
who  welcome  me  will  I  come  in  courage,  with  the 
poetry  that  is  mine."^ 

This  is  already  a  digression,  or  would  be  so  were  it 
not  that  all  poetry  is  one  thing,  being  the  interpretation 
and  pattern  of  one  thing,  life.  But  it  would  be  de- 
lightful to  carry  the  digression  on,  and  point  out  the 
analogies,  subtle  or  patent,  between  the  Theocritean 
and  the  Tennysonian  manner  and  treatment.  Both 
poets  have  the  same  kind  of  sense  of  language;  the 
same  enriched  and  loaded  sweetness  of  phrasing;  the 
same  sensitiveness  to  sights  and  sounds.  The  work 
of  both  is  occasional^  irradiated  by  the  same  romantic, 
almost  mystical,  passion  for  beauty.  It  is  in  the  epic 
idyls,  and  the  genre-pieces,  if  I  may  use  with  an  apology 
a  term  for  which  there  is  scarcely  an  exact  English 
equivalent,  that  these  analogies  are  most  striking ;  for 
the  pastorals  proper  are  a  kind  of  poetry  in  which 
Theocritus,  though  he  has  had  many  followers,  has 
never  had  a  quite  authentic  colleague.  The  thirteenth 
idyl,  the  Rylas,  is  full  of  examples:  we  may  notice 
especially  the  enriched  detail  in  purely  subsidiary 
description:    "Neither   at   midday  nor  at   dawn,  nor 

1  Idyl  xvi.  8,  11,  15,  20,  32,  106-7. 


226  THEOCRITUS 

when  twittering  chickens  look  for  bed-time,  and  their 
mother  has  ruffled  out  her  wings  on  the  dusty  perch  "— 

ovS*  OTTOK  opraXiyoi  jmivvpol  ttotI  koltov  opwev 
(Tei(ra/j.€va9  irTepa  jmarpog  eir*  aiOaXoevri  irerevptp — 

the  minute  particularity  in  the  list  of  flowers  that 
grow  about  the  pool — 

irepl  Se  Opva  TroXXa  irec^vKei 
Kvaveov  re  yeki^oviov  yXwpov  t  aSlavTov 
Koi  OdWovTa  (TeXiva  Kai  elXiTcvrjg  aypwcTTi^ — 

"  About  it  grew  rushes  many  and  glossy  celandine  and 
green  maidenhair  and  lush  cow-parsley  and  marsh 
couch-grass " :  and  the  swift-flashing  phrase  of  the 
girl  "with  Spring  in  her  eyes" — cap  opococra — 
followed  immediately  by  the  elaborately  expanded 
simile  of  the  falling  star:  "As  when  a  star  shoots 
flaming  out  of  heaven  and  flashes  down  into  the  sea, 
and  one  cries  to  his  fellow-sailors,  Up  with  the 
tackling,  lads,  lightly :  the  wind  is  fair  for  sailing " : 

a0p6o9  «?  ore  Trvpcrog  ax'  ovpavov  ripnrev  acTTrjp 
a0p6o9  €V  irovTcpf  vavTaiq  Se  Tf?  eiTreu  eraipoig ' 
KOvipoTcp^  CO  TratSeg  iroieicrO^  owXa  •  TrXevoTTiKog  ,ovpo£.^ 

All  these  are  in  the  specifically  idyllic  manner  which 
we  may  call  indifferently  Theocritean  or  Tennysonian. 
What   I  have  called  the  realism  or  modernism  of 
Theocritus  runs  through  the  whole  of  his  work.     It  is 
sometimes  most  striking  in  poems  where  the  poetic 

1  Idyl  xiii.  11-12,  40-2,  60-2. 


IDYLLIC    CONVENTION  227 

artifice,  the  idyllic  convention,  is  most  strongly  marked. 
His  effort  after  realism  issued  in  a  form  of  poetry 
which  has  become  the  very  type  of  unreality.  But  the 
truth  is  that  what  is  called  realism  in  art  is  after  all 
only  a  new  convention ;  it  is  of  the  essence  of  art  that 
it  is  not  nature,  but  an  interpretation,  a  reconstitution 
of  nature.  The  felicity  of  his  genius  is  most  apparent 
in  the  skill  and  dexterity  of  touch  by  which  he  gets 
his  poetic  convention  into  tone  with  the  naturalistic 
modern  touches  that  he  incorporates  with  it.  He  even 
uses  these  so  as  to  convey  into  his  poetry  a  fresh  accent 
of  strangeness  and  romance.  Current  phrases  of  the 
populace,  whether  town  or  country  folk,  even  now  and 
then  pieces  of  popular  slang,  are  so  used  and  so  reset  by 
him  as  to  bring  out  some  vivid  latent  colour  which  in 
ordinary  usage  had  long  become  dull  and  blurred. 
He  had  something  of  the  genius  of  Burns  in  rehandling, 
and  by  slight  touches  transfiguring,  what,  before  he 
took  it  in  hand,  had  been  commonplace,  vulgar,  empty 
of  beauty.  What  he  touched  he  rekindled.  An 
instance  is  a  phrase  in  the  song  of  Battus  in  the  tenth 
idyl,  over  which  translators  have  stumbled  badly : 
TToSeg  aarrpdyaXoi  reu?,  says  the  reaper  to  the  flute- 
girl  who  has  stolen  his  heart  away.  Somehow  or 
other  the  words  are  filled  with  an  indefinable  elusive 
beauty.  Mr.  Lang  in  translating  the  idyl  felt  the 
beauty — he  could  not  otherwise — but  could  only 
reproduce  it  by  transposing  it  into  the  key  of  courtly 
romance :  "  Thy  feet  are  fashioned  like  carven  ivory," 
he  renders  it.  They  that  have  feet  like  carven  ivory 
wear  soft  raiment  and  are  in  kings'  houses;  there  is 


228  THEOCRITUS 

not  a  word  of  carven  ivory  in  the  Greek.  The  language 
of  Battus,  here  and  throughout  his  song,  is  that  of 
a  common  rustic,  with  little  gift  of  expression,  whose 
rudimentary  imagination  half  expresses  itself  in  clumsy 
metaphors.  "I'm  sure,"  says  Tony  Lumpkin  while 
he  is  pretending  to  make  love  to  Miss  Neville  in 
Goldsmith's  play,  "  I  always  loved  cousin  Con's  pretty, 
long  fingers,  that  she  twists  this  way  and  that,  over 
the  haspicolls,  like  a  parcel  of  bobbins."  That  is  the 
tone  of  the  Theocritean  phrase.  "Your  feet  are 
knucklebones,"  says  Battus  ;  and  Theocritus  takes  the 
crude  phrase  as  it  stands,  makes  it  vivid,  makes  it 
poetry.  He  conveys  into  it  not  merely  the  whole 
picture  of  the  thin  brown  feet  leaping  and  falling  to 
the  rattle  of  anklet-rings  as  the  body  sways  and  the 
voice  drones  above  them,  but  a  sense  of  some  inner 
beauty,  some  touch  of  romance  and  almost  of  magic. 

Once  at  least,  it  is  curious  to  note,  Theocritus 
falls  into  the  same  sort  of  mistake  himself.  In  the 
long  description  of  the  carving  on  the  cup  in  the 
first  idyl — thirty  lines  of  elaborate  pictorial  treat- 
ment— he  forgets  the  quality  of  pastoral,  and  of  his 
own  genius.  Th^ocrite  d^crit  rarement  pour  ddcrire,  says 
a  French  critic  very  justly ;  and  this  passage  is  one 
of  three  or  four  only  of  this  kind  in  his  whole  volume. 
In  that  first  idyl  he  is  feeling  his  way  towards  his 
perfect  manner ;  he  has  not  yet  fully  learned  how  much 
to  reject.  The  picture  within  the  picture  breaks  the 
illusion  ;  and  incidentally  he  represents  the  shepherd's 
ivy-wood  cup,  bought  by  him  for  a  goat  and  cheese, 
as  decorated  in  a  way  that  would  only  be  possible,  if  at 


IDYLLIC   ROMANCE  229 

all,  to  carry  out  in  laborious  orient  irory  with  fabulous 
expense.  Realism  which  has  lost  touch  with  reaHty 
is  merely  futile. 

Or  take  another  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
Theocritus  catches  little  ordinary  phrases,  words  of 
common  talk,  and  makes  poetry  of  them.  In  the 
wonderful  monologue  of  Simaetha  in  the  second  idyl 
there  is  a  phrase  that  has  something  of  the  same 
wild  magic  beauty  as  there  is  in  the  song  of  Battus. 
"  Now  that  I  am  alone,"  says  the  girl,  "  I  will  begin 
to  go  over  it  all.  First  it  was  the  fair  of  St. 
Artemis;  I  borrowed  a  neighbour's  gown  and  went 
out  to  see  the  shows,  and  a  string  of  wild  beasts 
were  paraded,  and  there  was  a  lioness  " — ev  Se  Xeaiva. 
Just  what  any  common  girl  might  say,  as  her  shallow 
mobile  brain  flitted  over  little  pointless  incidents  that 
came  into  her  memory ;  but  the  three  words — I 
almost  despair  of  conveying  the  impression  they  make ; 
one  either  feels  it  or  does  not — take  under  the  poet's 
touch  a  strangeness  and  suggestiveness  that  make 
their  cadence  ring  long  in  the  mind,  a  gleam  that  will 
not  leave  them. 

The  sense  of  romance,  inwoven  through  all  or 
nearly  all  the  idyls  through  slight,  almost  imper- 
ceptible touches,  seldom  gathers  to  any  volume  or 
high  pressure.  It  does  so,  however,  in  one  poem,  the 
twelfth  idyl,  the  Aites,  or,  as  one  might  translate 
it  into  EHzabethan  English,  the  Passionate  Pilgrim. 
Here  the  romance,  as  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  is 
interfused  with  a  strange  half-mystical  passion.  It 
is  full  of  phrases  which  are  startlingly  like  those  of 


230  THEpCRITUS 

the  Sonnets :  "  The  world-without-end  hour  whilst  I, 
my  sovereign,  watch  the  clock  for  you  " ;  "So  are  you 
to  my  thoughts  as  food  to  life  or  as  sweet-seasoned 
showers  are  to  the  ground " ;  "  In  him  those  holy 
antique  hours  are  seen " ;  "A  backward  look  even  of 
five  hundred  courses  of  the  sun  " ;  "  Nor  shall  Death 
brag  thou  wanderest  in  his  shude  when  in  eternal  lines 
to  time  thou  growest";  **You  still  shall  live,  such 
virtue  hath  my  pen,  where  breath  most  breathes,  even 
in  the  mouths  of  men  " ;  "  So  I  return  rebuked  to  my 
content,  and  gain  by  ills  thrice  more  than  I  have  spent." 
That  charged,  enriched,  self-conscious  passion  is  at 
one  extreme  of  Theocritus'  genius ;  at  the  other 
extreme  are  his  scenes  of  realistic  comedy,  with  their 
extraordinary  fidelity  to  life,  yet  with  a  thread  of 
music  in  them  that  just  makes  them  poetry.  The 
fifteenth  idyl,  the  Adoniazusae,  is  too  well  known  to 
need  being  dwelt  on ;  but  it  is  worth  noting,  as  an 
instance  of  its  immense  skill,  how  Praxinoa's  most 
gorgeous  outburst  of  vulgarity  comes  immediately 
before  the  Adonis-song  with  its  wonderful  opening 
imagery  of  the  soft-footed  Hours,  the  Hours  that  are 
so  slow  and  so  dear,  that  always  come  bringing  gifts : 
yet  the  genius  of  the  artist  is  such  that  he  manages 
to  keep  the  two  passages  in  tone.  To  this  side  of  his 
work  too  belongs  that  fourteenth  idyl  which  I  have 
already  cited,  with  its  literal  transcript  of  the  dull 
featureless  provincial  life — like  the  life  in  which  Burns 
grew  up,  we  might  say  again — which  drove  its  young 
men,  from  sheer  ennui,  either  to  drink  or  ^o  the 
recruiting  sergeant. 


THE   THEOCRITEAN   TONE  231 

I  have  dwelt  somewhat  at  length    on   the    great 
range  of  Theocritus'  poetical  method  and  invention, 
because  it  was  largely  in  virtue  of  this  that  he  became 
a  force  in  poetry.     But  it  is  in  his  own  central  field, 
in  the  pastoral,  that  his  unique  poetical  achievement 
lies.     It  is  here  that  he  brought  to  the  life  of  a  rather 
weary  and  dispirited   age    a  draught  of   translucent 
freshness :  in  his  own  lovely  phrase,  **  a  cup  washed 
in  the  wells  of  the  Hours."     'A^u  n,  "  sweetness,"  is 
the  key- word  of  the  pastorals ;  the  delicate  sweetness 
of  nature  as  it  appealed  to  senses  still  unclouded  but 
now  transmitting  their  impressions  to  a  new  and  ex- 
quisite sensibility.    'ASv  n  to  y^LOupicriuia — "  sweet  and 
low  " — the  note  is  struck  with  a  sort  of  soft  certainty 
in  the  very  first  words  of  the  first  idyl.     Kovipov  Si 
Ti  TOVTO  Koi  aSv  yiv€T  €7r'  avOpwirm^  evpeiv  S^  ov  paoiov 
ea-Tiv,  he  says  again  of  his  own  poetry  in  the  eleventh 
idyl,  "  delicate  and  sweet,  and  not  easy  to  find."    It  was 
not  easy ;  for  no  one  else  has  ever  quite  found  it  again. 
Kai  €9  varrepov  dSiov  acrco — "  I  will  sing  even  sweeter 
yet" — are  the  last  words    of   Thyrsis ;    and   indeed 
Theocritus  never  exhausts  his  sweetness.     The  word 
runs  like  a  thread  of  gold  through  the  pastorals. 

Sweet  is  the  whispering  of  the  pine,  and  sweet 

The  tinkle  of  the  water  at  our  feet, 

And  sweet  your  piping,  herder  of  the  goats. 

"  Sweeter,  0  shepherd,  is  your  song,"  replies  the  goat- 
herd. "  The  sweet  Cyprian  "  comes  laughing ;  "  sweet 
we  murmured  to  one  another,"  says  the  girl  under  the 
flooding  moonlight ;  "  sweet  delight  in  kisses "  is  the 


232  THEOCRITUS 

longing  of  Amaryllis's  lover;  "sweet  the  piping"  of 
"  him  who  sat  upon  the  rocks  and  fluted  to  the  morn- 
ing sea  " ;  "  sweet "  the  song  of  Comatas  lying  on  the  hill 
under  the  oaks  and  pines.  "  Sweet  is  the  voice  of  the 
heifer,  sweet  her  breath,  and  sweet  to  lie  all  night  by 
running  water  in  summer  under  the  bare  sky,"  Daphnis 
sings ;  and  "  sweet  is  your  mouth,  Daphnis,"  cries  the 
admiring  listener. 

The  discovery  of  this  hitherto  untouched  sweetness 
in  life  was  the  triumph  and  glory  of  the  pastoral.  It 
made  Sicily  into  a  golden  world ;  and  it  made  all  the 
world  into  Sicily.  There  is  really  very  little  direct 
evidence  that  Theocritus  was  a  Sicilian  poet  by  birth. 
"  He  was  a  Syracusan,"  says  the  entry  under  his  name 
in  the  lexicon  of  Suidas,  "  or,  as  others  say,  a  Coan 
settled  in  Syracuse."  The  epigram  which  makes  him 
speak  of  himself  as  a  Syracusan  was  written  long  after 
his  time,  and  is  of  no  authority.  He  identifies  him- 
self, more  or  less  consciously,  with  his  own  singing 
shepherd,  Thyrsis  of  Aetna,  but  that  proves  nothing. 
No  doubt  the  scenery  in  several  of  the  idyls — not 
really  in  many — is  expressly  Sicilian,  and  where  it  is 
so,  it  is  spoken  of  with  a  sort  of  personal  passion ;  the 
lyrical  cry  in  the  A'irva  /uarep  i/iid  of  Menalcas'  song 
in  the  ninth  idyl  sounds  as  if  it  came  straight  from 
the  poet  himself ;  in  the  song  of  Thyrsis  in  the  first 
idyl  he  calls  Pan  as  if  in  his  own  voice  to  leave 
Arcadia  and  its  legendary  hills,  and  "  come  hither  to 
the  Sicilian  isle."  But  all  we  can  say  for  certain  is 
that  both  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy  were  familiar  to 
him,  and  that  he  certainly  spent  part  of  his  life  in 


i'v^-' 


THE    GOLDEN  WORLD  233 

both,  in  youth  probably,  in  maturer  years  certainly. 
The  scenery  of  the  Italo-Sicilian  idyls  is  sometimes 
that  of  Calabria  rather  than  of  Sicily :  two  or  three 
are  definitely  placed  in  Italy;  in  the  eighth,  the 
shepherd  looks  down  on  the  Sicilian  sea  from  the 
"  myriad  depth "  of  what  seems  to  be  a  Calabrian 
forest.  But  the  scene  of  the  Thalysia  certainly,  the 
loveliest  of  all  the  idyls,  and  I  think  also  that  of  the 
Pharmaceutriae,  the  most  passionate  and  splendid,  is 
laid  in  Cos,  which  was  not  only  an  island  of  extreme 
beauty,  but  a  school  of  poets :  Philetas,  his  own  im- 
mediate master,  was  a  Coan.  In  Alexandria  itself  he 
must  have  lived  long  enough  not  only  to  be  perfectly 
familiar  with  it — the  Adoniazusae  is  sufficient  proof 
of  this,  and  nearly  all  men  of  letters  in  that  golden 
age  of  Alexandrianism  drifted  to  Alexandria — but 
to  feel  keenly,  in  its  shadeless  atmosphere  and 
swarming  life,  home-sickness  for  the  woods  and 
streams  and  meadows  of  a  more  northern  mountain 
land. 

That  home-sickness  is  the  note  of  pastoral.  Its 
return  to  nature  is  the  return  of  tired  men  to  their 
childhood ;  young  themselves  in  mind  no  longer,  they 
find  in  natural  beauty  and  in  the  simpler  life  of  the 
open  air  the  illusion,  and  something  more  than  an 
illusion,  of  the  fountain  of  youth.  To  see  the  fresh 
beauty  of  the  natural  world  freshly,  to  feel  it  not 
merely  through  their  bodily  senses  but  through  a 
medium  of  enriched  art  and  long  poetic  tradition,  to 
re-create  it  imaginatively,  was  the  achievement  of  the 
pastoral  poets. 


234  THEOCRITUS 

Yon  cloud  with  that  long  purple  cleft 

Brings  fresh  into  my  mind 
A  day  like  this  which  I  have  left 

Full  thirty  years  behind. 

My  eyes  are  dim  with  childish  tears, 

My  heart  is  idly  stirred, 
For  the  same  sound  is  in  my  ears 

Which  in  those  days  I  heard. 

In  all  the  Theocritean  pastorals  there  is,  expressed  or 
implicit,  this  accent  of  yearning.  Sometimes,  as  in 
the  first  or  third  idyls,  it  is  explicit ;  sometimes  it  is 
hardly  to  be  found  in  the  words,  only  in  the  atmos- 
phere. It  is  always  felt  in  the  verse,  the  lingering, 
soft-cadenced,  frail  bucolic  hexameter.  The  "  pathetic 
insincerity  "  which  has  been  spoken  of  as  characteristic 
of  the  pastoral  is  not  really  insincere.  If  it  were,  it 
would  certainly  not  have  the  power,  as  it  has,  of 
moving,  for  generation  after  generation — yeveii^  Se 
SirjKoa-iija-iv  eweiTa — the  heart  of  the  world. 

The  emplacement  and  scope  of  pastoral  are  given, 
completely  and  once  for  all,  in  the  Thalysia.  Romance 
and  realism  are  there  fused  into  something  different 
from  either :  as  in  the  Venetian  Pastoral  of  Giorgione, 
they  merge  in  a  tone  and  colour  which  are  and  are 
not  those  of  life,  and  in  which  the  distinctions  of  the 
older  kinds  of  art  are  disappearing. 

Let  be  : 
Say  nothing  now  unto  her  lest  she  weep, 
Nor  name  this  ever.     Ba  it  as  it  was  : 
Life  touching  lips  with  Immortality. 

Like  Giorgione,  Theocritus  had  artistic  predecessors, 
but  no  artistic  parent.     The  "  bucolic  Muse  "  appears 


PASTORAL   SENSITIVENESS         235 

indeed,  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  idyl,  as  a  name 
already  familiar;  the  name  is  old  Sicilian,  we  are 
told,  and  goes  back  to  Stesichorus.  But  in  the  sense 
in  which  it  is  an  actual  and  accomplished  art  it  is  the 
creation  of  Theocritus.  Before  him,  it  has  origins,  but 
no  history.  After  him  it  has  history  enough,  but 
hardly  any  further  development. 

Theocritus  has  been  called  the  most  and  least 
natural  of  the  Greek  poets :  it  is  just  because  he  was 
both  that  he  was  able  to  effect  his  wonderful  creation, 
to  fuse  elements  which  in  their  very  nature  are  anxious 
to  leap  asunder.  The  weakness  of  sentimental  and 
romantic  poetry  is  that  sentiment  blurs  the  im- 
pressions of  the  senses,  and  romance  plays  havoc  with 
the  intelligence;  The  sensitiveness  to  nature  in  Theo- 
critus is  like  that  of  Shelley  or  Coleridge :  only  they 
or  poets  of  a  gift  akin  to  theirs  could  have  given  us 
the  "  sea-green  dawn  " — yXavKav  ;Jco — of  the  sixteenth 
idyl,  or  the  south-easter  (not,  as  on  the  Neapolitan  or 
Tuscan  coast,  the  west  wind)  that  stirs  the  seaweed  far 
below — 09  Go-^ara  (pvKia  Kivel — in  the  seventh ;  and  the 
dramatic  idyls  show  an  observation  of  life  that  is  no 
less  radiantly  clear. 

These  gifts  he  did  not  transmit  to  his  pupils ;  and 
immediately  after  him  (so  quick  bright  things  come 
to  confusion)  the  pastoral  fell  to  pieces.  Theocritus  is 
original  and  Greek.  Bion  of  Smyrna  is  imitative  and 
Asiatic :  as  workmanship,  adroit ;  as  poetry,  valueless. 
The  "  Sicilian  song  "  which  he  professes  to  sing  in  the 
fragment  of  Achilles  and  Deidameia — if  that  piece  be  his, 
which  is  doubted — is  neither  a  song  nor  Sicilian ;  the 


236  THEOCRITUS 

Adonis-dirge  is  so  uninspired  that  it  suggests  some- 
thing produced  by  machinery.  In  Moschus,  the  third 
of  the  three  bucolic  poets  who  were  admitted  into  the 
canon,  the  Theocritean  tradition  is  alive,  but  on  the 
point  of  dissolving.  It  makes  a  swan-like  end,  fading 
in  music  of  extraordinary  sweetness ;  only  the  sweet- 
ness is  becoming  deliquescent;  the  clear  touch,  the 
pure  line,  of  classical  art  begin  to  disappear.  His 
Muse  moves  among  dreams  before  dawn  such  as  that 
beautifully  described  in  the  opening  lines  of  his  Europa: 
"  When  the  third  watch  of  the  night  sets  in  and  the 
dawn  is  near,  when  sleep  sweeter  than  honey  rests  on 
the  eyelids  and  relaxes  the  limbs,  enchaining  the  eyes 
in  soft  fetters,  when  the  nation  of  dreams  that  come 
true  goes  shepherded."  ^ 

Moschus  is  immortal  as  the  author  of  one  poem,  the 
elegy  on  Bion.  That  lovely  wail  by  the  Sicilian  waters, 
so  unapproachable  in  its  languorous  but  piercing 
beauty,  so  precious  to  us  not  only  for  its  own  sake  but 
because  it  is  the  precursor  and  model  of  the  Lycidas 
and  the  Adonais  and  the  Thyrsis,  is  not  only  a  lament 
for  Bion ;  it  is  a  lament  for  Greek  poetry.  "  Tell  the 
Sicilian  waters  that  song  has  died,  and  the  Dorian 
minstrelsy  perished " :  a-vv  avrw  koi  to  /meXog  reOvaKc 
Kol  toXero  Acopig  aoiSd.  "All  the  gifts  of  the  Muses 
have  died  with  thee  " :  Trai/ra  tol  cS  /3ovTa  crvyKaTOave 
Swpa  TOL  Moia-av.  The  whole  roll  of  the  Greek  poets  is 
summoned  to  join  in  the  lamentation,  from  Homer  and 
Hesiod  and  Orpheus  down  through  the  line  of  the 
lyrists  and  elegists,  Sappho  and  Pindar,  Alcaeus  and 

^  Mosch.  ii.  2-5. 


THE   COMPLETED   CIRCLE  237 

Anacreon  and  Archilochus,  Asclepiades  and  Philetas ; 
"  and  among  the  Syracusans  Theocritus ;  but  I  sing 
thee  the  dirge  of  an  Ausonian  sorrow."  It  is  this  last 
line  upon  which  the  most  stress  is  to  be  laid.  For  the 
light  of  poetry  was  passing  from  Hellas  to  Ausonia, 
and  for  Hellas  there  was  to  be  no  second  spring.  "  Ah 
me,  when  the  mallows  wither  in  the  garden,  and  the 
green  parsley  and  the  curled  shoots  of  the  anise,  once 
more  they  spring  again  later  and  blow  for  another  year  ; 
but  we  men  the  great  and  mighty,  we  the  wise,  when 
we  have  died  the  first  time,  go  down  into  silence,  and 
in  the  hollow  land  sleep  well  the  very  long  termless 
unawakening  sleep."  The  circle  of  the  Greek  poets 
was  rounded  off  and  returned  into  itself :  the  "  Dorian 
Orpheus  was  perished."  When  this  most  musical  of 
mourners  wrote  its  epitaph  in  those  lovely  lines,  the 
axis  of  the  world  had  shifted.  Sicily  had  become  a 
Roman  province.  The  streets  of  the  white  towns  rang 
under  the  tramp  of  the  terrible  Latin  infantry,  and  the 
Sicilian  waters  were  swept  by  Latin  fleets.  Ennius 
and  Plautus  were  creating  a  new  poetry,  full  of  the 
pride  of  a  new  life,  at  Rome ;  and  the  shepherds  and 
ploughmen  and  fisher-folk  of  Theocritus  were  sinking 
into  a  wretched  provincial  proletariat,  minutus  populus, 
a  people  meted  out  and  trodden  down,  the  serf-popula- 
tion of  the  sovereign  Republic. 

Not  indeed  that  the  Theocritean  pastoral  was  the 
last  word  in  Greek  poetry,  or  that  in  him  Greek  poetry 
wholly  ended  its  creative  energy.  New  methods  were 
still  being  essayed;  the  impulse  to  get  poetry  into 
relation  with  life  was  not  wholly  exhausted.      The 


238  THEOCRITUS 

romantic  epic  as  it  took  shape,  timidly  and  imperfectly, 
in  the  hands  of  ApoUonius  the  Rhodian,  was  a  germ 
destined  to  develop  great  things ;  of  the  two  poets  it  is 
Apollonius  and  not  Theocritus  who  had  the  larger  and 
more  decisive  influence  in  suggesting  and  awakening 
the  consummate  art  of  Virgil.  But  Theocritus  not 
only  suggested  a  new  art  in  poetry;  he  effectively 
created  it,  and  left  it  complete.  Not  quite  the  last  of 
the  Greek  poets,  he  is  the  last  poet  among  the  Greek 
classics.  Apollonius  and  the  rest  are  half-forgotten ; 
Theocritus  is  alive.  And  this  creation  of  his  was  his 
own,  the  product  of  his  unique  genius.  He  remains, 
even  now,  the  supreme  master  of  the  pastoral;  but 
even  were  it  otherwise,  we  still  might  say,  in  the 
words  placed  in  the  mouth  of  the  inventor  of  the  tragic 
drama  three  hundred  years  earlier  :  "  Younger  genera- 
tions refashion  this,  and  infinite  time  will  make  many 
more  discoveries  yet ;  but  mine  are  mine."  ^  The 
opening  phrase  of  the  lines  written  in  Theocritus' 
person  and  prefixed  to  the  volume  of  his  poems  may 
be  taken  in  a  sense  in  which  it  was  not  meant,  and  so 
read  as  to  be  both  a  claim  to  and  a  judgment  on  his 
place  among  the  poets  :  aXXo?  6  Xfo?  •  eyco  Se  OeoKptro^ 
— "  Homer  is  different :  I  am  Theocritus."  With  a 
backward  look  even  of  five  hundred  courses  of  the 
sun,  the  Idyls  close  the  golden  pomp  which  opened 
with  the  Iliad. 

1  Dioscorides  on  Thespis  in  Anth.  Pal.,  vii.  410. 


Ill 

APOLLONIUS  OF  RHODES  AND 
THE  ROMANTIC  EPIC 

Alexandrianism,  as  it  worked  itself  out  in  the  group 
of  poets  belonging  to  the  former  half  of  the  third  century 
before  Christ,  meant  among  other  things  the  decisive 
predominance  of  the  short  poem.  This  is  a  common 
feature  of  the  new  art  in  its  many  essays  along  various 
lines  of  development ;  alike  in  the  hymns  and  elegies 
of  Callimachus,  in  the  poetry  of  sentiment  as  repre- 
sented by  Philetas  and  Euphorion,  in  the  poetry  of 
science  as  (represented  by  Aratus,  and  in  the  idyls  and 
pastorals  of  Theocritus  and  his  school.  Their  method, 
to  whatever  subject  it  might  be  applied,  got  its  effects 
within  short  compass;  more  than  that,  it  lost  them, 
or  tended  to  lose  them,  if  that  compass  were  much 
extended.  The  Loutra  Pallados  of  Callimachus,  a  piece 
of  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  lines,  or  the  Thalysia 
of  Theocritus,  a  piece  of  a  little  over  one  hundred  and 
fifty,  are  about  the  normal  maximum  at  which  this 
kind  of  poetry  completes  its  orbit.  Where  that  limit 
is  largely  exceeded,  the  weaknesses  of  the  method — 
or  rather,  perhaps,  the  weaknesses  of  the  poets  who 
used  it — begin  to  show  themselves.  Their  swallow- 
flights  of  song  dip  and  skim ;  they  have  not  power  of 


240  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

wing  for  prolonged  and  continuous  imaginative  com- 
position. Of  the  Hecale  of  Callimachus,  a  long  poem 
as  length  was  then  counted,  we  have  only  a  few  frag- 
ments ;  but  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  it  was 
a  deliberate  attempt  to  work  on  a  scale  which  was 
beyond  that  which  commended  itself  to  his  own 
judgment.  The  fragmentary  Herachs  Zeontophonos  of 
Theocritus  produces,  in  something  under  three  hundred 
lines,  an  effect  approaching  tediousness.  Even  in  the 
necessarily  larger  scope  of  the  scientific  poem,  the 
Phaenomena  and  Diosemeia  of  Aratus  do  not  exceed 
the  length  of  a  normal  single  book  of  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey  respectively.  Lycophron's  Cassandra  would 
be  tedious  however  short  it  wereTlBut  its  tediousness  is 
greatly  exaggerated  by  its  running  to  the  length  of 
about  fifteen  hundred  lines.  Much  of  the  finest  work 
of  the  period  is  to  be  found  within  the  narrow  limit  of 
the  epigram,  and  it  was  towards  the  epigram  or  some- 
thing approximating  to  the  epigram  that  the  art  of 
poetry  seemed  to  be  moving,  at  all  events  on  the  side 
on  which  it  had  the  most  certain  vitality.  That  slight 
but  real  form  of  poetry  remained  alive  when  the  other 
forms  invented  and  practised  by  the  Alexandrians 
dwindled  away.  The  successors  of  Callimachus  in 
elegy  seem  to  have  been  for  the  most  part  feeble 
copyists :  Nicander  and  the  other  didactic  poets  show 
a  similar  falling-off  from  Aratus;  and  we  have  seen 
how  rapidly  the  pastoral  idyl  sank  into  silence  or  into 
futility  after  Theocritus. 

The  cult  of  the  short  poem  became  elevated  into  a 
dogma.      It  is  crystallised  in  the  saying  attributed  to 


THE   KEVOLT  t"^IT^ 

Callimachus,  iJiiya  /3l/3Xiov  fxiya  KaKov,  '*  a  big  book  is  a 
great  nuisance."  Like  most  dogmas,  it  was  the  empha- 
sised assertion  of  what  could  not  be  rationally  proved ; 
and  it  was  not  only  emphasised,  but  polemical ;  it  was 
directed  against  a  school  which  asserted  the  contrary, 
and  tried  to  justify  their  opinion  not  merely  by  criti- 
cism but  by  practice.  What  is  true  of  the  arts 
generally  is  true  of  poetry  likewise,  that  the  predomi- 
nance of  any  one  school  or  manner  creates  a  reaction, 
which  in  the  hands  of  able  or  ambitious  artists 
becomes  a  revolt.  Sometimes  the  revolt  succeeds,  and 
then  it  becomes  a  revolution. 

The  revolt  against  Alexandrianism  was  headed  by 
Apollonius,  called  the  Rhodian.  It  was  sustained  by 
him  almost  single-handed,  and  he  had  not  the  genius 
or  the  luck  to  make  it  succeed.  I  use  the  words 
genius  and  luck  as  though  they  were  alternative  causes 
of  success,  but  this  is  hardly  the  case.  Ti;;^^  T6)(yr]v 
earep^e  kol  ri-^^yri  rvyjiv,  as  Agathon  said  in  the  line 
that  Aristotle  is  so  fond  of  quoting;  and  the  Latin 
felicitas  includes  both.  The  failure  of  Apollonius  in 
his  revolt  against  the  Alexandrian  practice  and  the 
Callimachean  dogma,  so  far  as  it  failed — and  for  the 
time  it  did  fail — was  due  to  his  infelicity.  But  felicity, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  practical  Roman  mind, 
was  not  a  mere  chance  product  of  external  causes ;  it 
was  also  a  virtue  in  its  possessor.  The  virtue  that  was 
in  the  young  rebel  who  at  the  age  of  less  than  twenty 
ran  up  his  red  flag  in  Alexandria  itself  and  before  the 
nose  of  the  dictator  of  poetry  was  not  powerful  enough 
to  dethrone  the  occupying  dynasty.     It  was  not  even 

Q 


242  APOLLONIUS    RHODIUS 

powerful  enough  to  make  him  produce  a  great  poem. 
But  it  was  powerful  enough  to  survTve  temporary 
defeat  and  to  give  a  new  direction  afterwards  to  the 
main  course  of  poetry.  The  effective  result  of  Apol- 
lonius  in  the  progress  of  poetry  is  to  be  found  not  in 
the  Argonautica  itself,  and  still  less  in  any  new 
development  which  Greek  poetry  took  after  him.  He 
did  not  succeed  in  giving  that  poetry  any  new  vitalising 
impulse ;  he  did  not  even  arrest  its  decline  and  decay. 
His  effective  result  is  to  be  found  two  hundred  years 
afterwards  in  Virgil.  He  scarcely  founded  a  school, 
but  he  had  one  transcendent  scholar.  Virgil  studied 
all  the  Alexandrians  deeply  and  plundered  from  them 
freely;  but  Apollonius  he  absorbed  and  transfigured 
by  his  own  genius ;  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  but 
for  the  Argonautica  we  should  not  have  had  the 
Aeneid.  He  used  Theocritus  in  some  such  way  in  the 
Eclogues ;  but  in  the  Eclogues  he  had  not  mastered 
his  own  art,  and  the  specific  Virgilianism  which  gives 
them  their  charm  and  beauty  is  as  yet  intermittent 
and  not  under  full  control.  He  used  Aratus  in  some 
such  way  in  the  Georgics,  but  Aratus  is  only  a 
secondary  influence  in  that  wonderful  texture.  Theo- 
critus and  Aratus  still  stand  by  themselves — on  very 
different  poetical  levels,  it  is  true.  But  in  the  Aeneid 
Virgil  not  only  absorbed  Apollonius;  he  effaced 
him. 

Still,  the  poem  which  had  a  germinal  effect  of  so 
immense  a  significance  clearly  must  require  and  repay 
study,  even  it  were  not  the  case,  as  it  is  the  case,  that  it 
has  a  substantive  beauty  and  value  of  its  own.    In  poetry 


THE    FERMENT  243 

we  must  not  look  for  what  is  not  there ;  and  in  the 
Argonautica  we  need  not  look  for  either  the  classical  or 
the  romantic  quality  in  anything  approaching  perfec- 
tion. He  is  at  once  a  classicist  and  a  romanticist ;  he 
wavers  between  the  two  methods,  unable  and  unwilling 
to  rid  himself  fully  of  his  classicism,  unable  and 
probably  undesirous  to  launch  out  fully  into  his 
romanticism.  He  never  merges  or  fuses  the  two  into 
that  supreme  product  which,  to  use  once  more  a 
phrase  which  bears  repetition,  is  neither  classical  nor 
romantic,  but  is  simply  right.  "  The  imagination  of 
a  boy  is  healthy,"  Keats  writes  in  the  preface  to 
Endymion,  "  and  the  mature  imagination  of  a  man  is 
healthy ;  but  there  is  a  space  of  life  between,  in  which 
the  soul  is  in  a  ferment,  the  character  undecided,  the 
way  of  life  uncertain,  the  ambition  thick-sighted: 
thence  proceeds  mawkishness."  When  Apollonius 
conceived  and  executed  the  first  draft  of  his 
Argonautica,  he  was  in  this  state  of  ferment,  between 
boy  and  man;  his  ambitions  were  thick-sighted,  his 
way  uncertain,  the  character  he  meant  to  give  to 
poetry  undecided.  Only,  he  was  not  a  Keats.  Keats 
knew  better  than  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in 
revising  and  rewriting  Endymion.  One  cannot  imagine 
Apollonius  saying  or  thinking  what  Keats  says  in  the 
same  preface:  "In  this  poem  the  reader  must  soon 
perceive  great  inexperience,  immaturity,  and  every 
error  denoting  a  feverish  attempt  rather  than  a  deed 
accomplished.  The  two  first  books,  and  indeed  the 
two  last,  I  feel  sensible  are  not  of  such  completion  as 
to  warrant  their  passing  the  press ;  nor  should  they  if 


244  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

I  thought  a  year  s  castigation  would  do  them  any 
good ;  it  will  not — the  foundations  are  too  sandy.  It 
is  just  that  this  youngster  should  die  away."  What 
he  did  do  was  precisely  the  contrary.  His  poem  had 
been  received  by  the  Quarterly  Reviewers  of  the  day 
with  a  storm  of  obloquy.  He  went  away  with  his  poem 
to  Rhodes — somewhat  as  a  modern  French  poet  might 
remove  from  Paris  to  Brussels — and  there  devoted  not 
one  year  but  many,  "  the  rest  of  his  life  "  according  to 
the  vague  generalities  of  scholiasts,  to  its  castigation. 
How  far  this  labour  went  in  materially  changing  either 
the  substance  or  the  tone  and  handling  of  the  poem  is 
unfortunately  quite  unknown.  But  as  it  was  devoted 
largely  at  least  towards  meeting  the  objections  raised 
by  his  critics,  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that  the  result 
was  something  of  a  compromise  between  the  legitimist 
and  revolutionary  principles.  The  remodelling  of  a 
poem  by  its  author  is  rarely  a  success ;  life  is  apt  to 
evaporate  in  the  process.  If  we  possessed  the  original 
Argonautica,  we  might  very  likely  find  it  full  of  the 
faults  of  youth — crude,  uneven,  indecorous,  sometimes 
setting  our  teeth  on  edge — ^but  we  should  know  better 
what  Apollonius  and  his  revolt  meant,  what  they  tried 
to  do ;  and  we  probably  might  not  find  in  it  that  fatal 
flatness,  that  mechanical  polish,  which  is  the  con- 
demnation of  the  existing  poem.  "I  hope,"  Keats 
continues  in  that  splendid  preface,  "  I  hope  I  have  not 
in  too  late  a  day  touched  the  beautiful  mythology  of 
Greece,  and  dulled  its  brightness,.— -This  is  just  what 
Apollonius,  with  all  his  merits,  did ;  and  this  is  what 
sets  him,  as  regards  substantive  value  though  not  as 


THE    COMPROMISE  245 

regards  effect  on  poetry,  below  the  Alexandrian  poets 
of  the  earlier  school. 

A  furious  controversy  raged  for  years  between  the  two 
schools.  Apollonius  had  the  great  advantage  of  being  a 
generation  younger ;  time  was  on  his  side ;  nor  had  he 
to  fight  single-handed.  At  the  death  of  Callimachus, 
the  chief  librarianship  of  Alexandria  was  conferred  on  a 
man  of  science,  a  physicist  and  mathematician.  This 
may  perhaps,  apart  from  the  eminence  of  Eratosthenes, 
the  greatest  name  in  science  of  the  whole  Ptolemaic 
age,  be  taken  as  indicating  that  the  supremacy  of  the 
Callimachean  doctrine  and  practice  was  so  much  shaken 
that  it  did  not  survive  Callimachus.  An  armed  truce 
was  imposed  on  the  literary  conflict.  When  Eratos- 
thenes died  a  few  years  later,  it  was  Apollonius  himself 
who  was  called  to  fill  his  place.  But  he  was  not  received 
into  the  Canon  of  Greek  classics  drawn  up  by  Aris- 
tarchus.  The  truce  issued  in  a  compromise,  where 
neither  party  could  claim  a  decided  victory. 

The  epic — if  we  use  the  word  in  its  laxer  and 
wider  sense  as  meaning  the  long  narrative  poem — had 
dwindled  away  gradually  in  the  earlier  age  of  Hellenic 
Uterature.  The  bulk  of  the  cyclic  poets  are  dated  in 
the  eighth  century  B.C.,  but  their  successors  continue  in 
the  seventh  and  even  into  the  sixth.  The  rediscovery, 
the  effective  re-emergence  of  Homer  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury was  almost  coincident  with  their  disappearance. 
But  between  them  and  the  new  movement  of  the  third 
century  there  is  not  a  complete  gap.  Narrative  poetry 
continued  here  and  there  to  be  written.  Panyasis, 
the  kinsman  of  Herodotus,  is  one  of  those  stepping- 


246  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

stones.  About  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars  he  com- 
posed his  Heracleia,  a  poem  of  some  9000  lines,  and 
therefore  of  the  epic  magnitude,  dealing  with  certain 
among  the  adventures  of  Heracles ;  it  may  or  may  not 
have  been  a  supplement  to  the  earlier  Heradeia  of  the 
Rhodian  Peisander,  one  of  the  later  cyclists  whose  date 
is  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century.  Both  were 
classed  among  the  epic  poets  in  Alexandrian  lists.  So 
was  another  poet  of  about  a  century  later,  Antimachus 
of  Glares,  whose  Thehaid,  a  poem  of  enormous  length, 
is  said  to  have  won  the  praise  of  Plato  when  he 
heard  it  read,  and  later  served  as  a  model  to  Statins. 
Another  Thehaid,  which,  however,  seems  to  have  been 
a  chronicle  rather  than  an  epic,  was  written  by  An- 
tagoras  of  Rhodes,  a  friend  of  Aratus,  and  belonging 
therefore  to  the  age  of  Callimachus.  These  names, 
and  others  even  more  shadowy,  all  belong  to  a  single 
area,  the  south-western  corner  of  Asia  Minor  and  the 
outlying  islands.  They  suggest  that  in  that  corner  of 
the  Greek  world  at  least,  the  tradition  and  practice 
of  long  narrative  poems  was  continuous,  and  that 
when  Apollonius  left  Alexandria  for  Rhodes  it  was  not 
merely  a  self-imposed  exile,  but  a  movement  into 
a  more  sympathetic  environment.  He  did  not  only 
gather  a  circle  there,  he  found  one  already  existing ; 
and  he  gave  that  poetical  school  a  new  direction,  and 
even,  we  might  say,  a  new  vitality.  The  romantic 
epic,  as  it  finally  left  his  hands,  had  become  a  recog- 
nised and  in  some  sense  a  classical  form  of  poetry. 
To  gain  that  position,  it  had  to  make  large  compro- 
mises ;  and  compromise  in  poetry,  as  in  all  art,  brings 


THE   TRANSITIONAL   EPIC  247 

with  it  the  inevitable  consequence  of  mediocrity.  Apol- 
lonius  had  not  the  controlling  genius  required  to  merge 
and  fuse  the  newer  with  the  older  elements ;  that  was 
left  for  his  immortal  pupil.  Both  had  that  infinite 
capacity  for  taking  pains  which  has  so  often  been 
confounded  with  genius ;  but  Virgil  had  genius  as  well. 
In  one  thing  at  least  Apollonius  was  happy,  and 
that  was  in  his  choice  of  subject.  The  Quest  of  the 
Golden  Fleece  is  a  story  of  imperishable  interest  and 
charm,  second  only  perhaps  in  that  respect  to  the 
story  of  the  Odyssey,  superior  even  to  the  story  of 
the  Odyssey  in  its  rounded  completeness.  It  com- 
bines in  the  happiest  way  the  two  great  motives  of 
love  and  adventure :  it  is  rich  in  episodic  matter,  and 
yet  on  its  main  lines  moves  forward,  from  the  coming 
of  Jason  to  lolcos  down  to  his  triumphant  return,  with 
a  single  and  accumulating  interest.  Its  danger  lies  in 
its  richness;  the  wealth  of  detail  is  so  great  that 
without  high  architectonic  power  the  structure  falls 
to  pieces  and  the  main  interest  becomes  smothered. 
This  power,  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  indispen- 
sable in  poetry,  Apollonius  did  not  possess.  In  the 
Argonautica  we  feel  that  the  poet  is  trying  to  do 
several  things  at  once,  and  that  he  has  not  the  con- 
structive power  to  give  them  organic  unity,  has  not 
the  imaginative  ardour  to  fuse  them  in  a  single  con- 
trolling movement.  He  has  neither  the  power  of 
composing  on  a  great  scale  such  as  would  be  needed 
to  handle  and  incorporate  the  whole  of  his  material, 
nor  the  strength  of  mind  and  clearsightedness  of  judg- 
ment to  discard  what  only  interfered  with  the  unity 


248  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

and  blurred  the  tone  of  what  he  might  have  chosen 
for  the  scope  of  a  single  romance.  To  compare  him 
with  Virgil  is  instructive,  but  as  regards  this  particular 
point  partly  irrelevant,  for  Virgil's  object  was  different ; 
yet  so  far  as  the  objects  of  the  two  poets  coincide,  we 
can  clearly  see  in  the  earlier  poet  the  fumbling  of  a 
scholar,  in  the  later  the  secure  handling  of  a  master. 
But  if  we  compare  the  Argonautica  with  the  English 
treatment  of  the  same  story  in  the  Life  and  Death  of 
Jason,  we  see  at  once  that  where  Apollonius  fails  is 
in  lack  of  the  true  narrative  gift — that  exceedingly  rare 
and  exceedingly  precious  quality — and  in  lack  of  con- 
structive or  architectural  power.  In  that  last  quality, 
throughout  his  whole  work,  Morris  is  faultless.  Apol- 
lonius, like  many  other  eminent  poets,  did  not  pos- 
sess it,  did  not  at  least  possess  it  effectively.  He 
was  capable  of  beautiful  episodes,  exquisite  similes  and 
descriptive  passages ;  he  brought  into  poetry,  here  and 
there,  a  romantic  touch  which  was  new  and  his  own ; 
but  he  had  not  the  sustained  grasp  and  range  required 
to  produce  a  great  poem.  Hence  it  is  that  he  so  often 
produces  the  impression  of  not  knowing  clearly  what 
he  would  be  at.  He  is  like  those  artists  whose  draw- 
ing is  fundamentally  wrong,  and  who  labour  on  in  a 
sort  of  half-unconscious  hope  that  it  will  come  right 
in  the  painting.     But  it  does  not. 

The  beauty  of  the  detail  in  the  Argonautica  is  often 
beyond  praise.  It  is  not  surprising  that  critics,  whose 
eye  is  necessarily  fixed  on  detail,  have  sometimes 
been  misled  into  thinking  that  it  is  the  detail  that 
matters,  and  that  ornament  need  not  be  judged  by  its 


STRUCTURAL   QUALITY  249 

relation  to  structure.  It  was  a  desperate  saying  of  one 
of  these,  which  need  not  be  taken  too  seriously,  that 
ApoUonius  was  better  than  Virgil.  Perhaps  the  merits 
of  ApoUonius  had  to  be  over-emphasised  to  redress  the 
balance  of  the  orthodox  criticism,  contemptuous  because 
it  was  undiscriminating.  The  way  in  which  Conington 
handles  the  matter  in  his  preface  to  the  Aeneid  gives 
sufficient  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  The  substance 
of  his  attack  is  that  the  Argonautica  is  not  epic.  To 
this  charge,  put  baldly  thus,  the  answer  is  that  it  is  not 
epic  because  it  was  not  meant  to  be  epic ;  it  is  romance. 
Its  real  failure  is  that  the  author  had  not  the  genius  or 
courage  to  shake  himself  clear  of  the  epic  tradition, 
and  to  launch  himself  on  romance  boldly.  But  to  do 
that  would  have  required  a  genius  of  the  first  rank ; 
and  if  he  had  done  it,  it  would  have  meant,  in  the 
full  sense,  not  a  revolt  but  a  revolution.  Still  more 
unjust  is  the  charge,  also  made  by  Conington,  that 
the  language  of  the  Argonautica  is,  ''  though  some- 
times graceful  and  ingenious,  the  mere  jargon  of  a 
grammarian  seeking  to  revive  a  mode  of  speech  of 
which  he  had  no  living  appreciation."  If  we  approach 
Alexandrian  poetry  with  this  preconception,  we  shall 
never  even  begin  to  understand  it.  The  sneer  of 
Callimachus — aXXo?  eyei}  "done  already" — not  only 
might  be  turned  against  Callimachus  himself  with 
equal  justice,  but  is  one  of  those  facile  and  irrelevant 
criticisms  that  can  be  made  against  nearly  all  poetry, 
and  generally  are  in  fact  made  against  any  new  poet. 
Nullumst  iam  dictum  quod  non  dictum  sit  prius :  yes,  and 

1  Anth.Pal.,xu.^3, 


260  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

what  then  ?  It  is  the  essential  glory  of  poetry  that  it 
perpetually  reincarnates  what  is  as  old  as  the  begin- 
nings of  the  heaven  and  earth.  What  Callimachus 
really  complained  of  in  the  young  school,  what  really 
shocked  and  irritated  him,  was  not  that  Apollonius 
was  an  imitator,  but  that  he  was  an  innovator.  New 
poetry  is  generally  regarded  by  the  older  poets  with 
alarm ;  themselves  innovators  in  their  time,  they  are 
subject  to  the  delusion  (shared  by  them  with 
politicians,  and  indeed  with  mankind  generally)  that 
they  have  reached  finality,  and  that  the  further  progress 
of  poetry  means  decadence,  and  is  either  arrogant  or 
vulgar,  or  both.  Coleridge  thought  Tennyson  wrote 
Mariana  and  Oenone  and  the  Hesperides  "  without  very 
well  understanding  what  metre  is."  Tennyson  could 
not  see  any  merit  in  "  little  Swinburne."  So  the  story 
runs  from  one  generation  to  another.  Callimachus' 
words,  "  I  hate  the  cyclic  poem" — e-^dalpw  to  Trolrifia 
TO  kvkKlkov — if,  as  appears,  they  were  levelled  expressly 
at  Apollonius,  were  an  attack  not  on  his  Homericism 
but  on  that  new  and  specifically  romantic  treatment 
of  which  Apollonius  was  the  standard-bearer,  and 
which  to  Callimachus  seemed  vulgarity.  In  a  vicious 
but  not  remarkaby  clever  couplet,  Apollonius  retorted 
by  calling  Callimachus  a  "  wooden  head  " — ^vXivog 
vov^}  So  too  Swinburne  replied  to  Tennyson's 
"  poisonous  honey  "  with  something  about  "  treacle  " 
which  was  not  calculated  to  make  things  smoother. 
But  these  amenities  of  literary  men  are  not  very 
edifying  reading. 

*  Anth.  Pal.,  xi.  276. 


THE   INNOVATORS  251 

The  fame  of  ApoUonius  and  the  lastmg  charm  of 
his  poem  rest  on  the  third  book.  One  would  like  to 
believe  that  it  represents  the  core  of  the  poem  as  he 
originally  conceived  and  wrote  it.  It  stands  out  from 
the  rest,  not  so  much  by  greater  beauty  of  detail  as  by 
greater  unity  of  tone  and  radiance  of  colour.  It  is 
the  spirit  of  romance  finding,  however  imperfectly,  a 
continuous  voice ;  and  that  voice  is  the  more  strange 
and  fascinating  because  it  is  mingled  with  notes  of 
the  new  realism  which  ApoUonius,  like  the  whole  of 
the  earlier  Alexandrians,  was  feeling  after.  To  this 
central  part  of  the  poem  the  first  and  second  books 
are  in  effect  a  prologue  lengthened  out  to  tediousness, 
and  the  fourth  an  epilogue  which  only  escapes  tedious- 
ness by  the  heroic  remedy  of  stopping  abruptly  before 
the  story  reaches  its  end.  Comparisons  are  not  only 
odious  but  generally  misleading ;  yet  it  would  not  be 
wholly  misleading  to  compare  with  the  whole  poem, 
in  its  poetical  effect,  an  Aeneid  consisting  of  the  first, 
third,  and  fifth  books  only,  if  the  third  book  remained, 
according  to  Virgil's  original  plan,  a  direct  narrative, 
and  if  the  fifth  were  extended  a  little  so  as  to  include 
part  of  the  seventh  and  bring  the  Trojans  into 
Latium.  Evidently  such  a  poem  would  have  no 
unity  and  no  balance;  it  would  be  constructively, 
and  therefore  essentially,  wrong;  and  this  would  be 
quite  independent  of  whether  the  treatment  were 
definable  generally  as  classical  or  as  romantic.  It 
might  be  either,  or  both;  but  it  would  be  simply 
wrong.  We  should  read  it  for  the  sake  of  the  Fourth 
Book    (the    third,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  four  which 


252  APOLLONIUS    RHODIUS 

would  compose  the  poem)  and  for  the  detached 
beauties  of  the  other  three.  And  that  is  in  effect 
what  we  do  with  the  Argonautica. 

Romance,  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing of  it,  may  bear  two  meanings.  There  is  the 
romance  of  situation,  and  the  romance  of  incident. 
The  distinction  corresponds  roughly  to  the  distinction 
between  the  two  leading  motives  of  romantic  poetry, 
love  and  adventure.  It  is  only  when  they  are  combined 
that  the  new  form  of  poetry — the  romantic  epic  as  we 
call  it,  for  want  of  a  better  term — succeeds  fully  in 
doing  what  it  means  to  do.  The  term  romantic  epic 
is  of  course  a  clumsy  one;  the  thing  it  describes  is 
neither  an  epic  nor  a  romance.  In  the  Argonautica^ 
as  also  in  the  Aeneid,  there  are  three  distinguishable 
threads  :  the  epic  thread,  that  of  a  single  heroic  action ; 
the  chronicle  thread,  that  of  a  series  of  historical  or 
quasi-historical  events,  not  in  themselves  possessing 
unity;  and  the  romance  thread  proper,  that  of  a 
passionate  situation.  Virgil  wove,  or  rather  fused,  the 
three  into  a  single  magnificent  texture.  In  the 
Argonautica  they  lie  side  by  side,  detachably:  they 
even  to  a  certain  extent  jar  upon  one  another. 
Throughout  the  progress  of  the  narrative  one  feels 
Apollonius  consciously  wavering  between  two  things 
which  are  really  incompatible,  the  epic  subject  of  the 
achievement  of  the  Quest  of  the  Golden  Fleece  by 
Jason,  and  the  chronicle-romance  of  the  Argonauts. 
For  the  former  of  these  two  he  was  unequal  and 
probably  unwilling;  he  did  not  set  out  to  write  an 
epic,  but  a  new  kind  of  poem  differing  from  the  epic. 


EPIC   AND    CHRONICLE  253 

Yet  he  could  not  let  himself  go  upon  the  latter.  Every 
now  and  then  he  pulls  himself  up  with  an  obvious 
jerk  to  get  back  into  the  main  subject ;  the  effect  is 
awkward,  and  according  to  the  reader's  mood  either 
distressing  or  ludicrous.  "  But  why  need  I  tell  out  in 
full  the  story  of  Aethalides  ? "  (i.  648).  "  Of  these 
things  I  will  speak  no  further"  (i.  919),  when  they 
have  put  in  on  the  island  of  Electra.  "  If  I  must 
needs  recount  this  also  in  detail  under  the  dictation  of 
the  Muses"  is  his  excuse,  which  only  makes  things 
worse,  when  (ii.  844)  he  cannot  bring  himself  to  cut 
out  a  piece  of  irrelevant  antiquarianism,  suited  for  a 
chronicle  but  not  for  a  poem,  and  even  in  a  chronicle 
rather  an  intercalated  note  than  anything  properly 
belonging  to  the  chronicle  itself.  Or  once  more,  and 
this  time  with  a  painfully  ludicrous  effect  (i.  1220), 
where  he  has,  in  the  episode  of  Hylas  and  Heracles, 
got  entangled  in  a  digression  from  a  digression,  and 
breaks  it  short  with  the  fatuous  reflection  aWa  to,  /jlcp 
TrjXou  K€v  airoirXay^eLev  aoiS^g — "  this  however  will  lead 
me  far  astray  from  my  poem."  It  will ;  but  there  is 
no  need  to  say  so,  or  to  get  to  a  point  where  it  has  to 
be  said.  It  suggests,  it  even  provokes,  satirical  treat- 
ment :  But  why  should  I  encumher  you  with  histories  of 
Matthew  Coo  ? — Let  Matthew  Coo  at  once  take  winy :  'tis 
not  of  him  I'm  goiny  to  siny.  Here  and  there,  in  the 
first  two  books,  one  almost  can  hear  Apollonius 
murmuring    to    himself   another  verse    of   the   same 

ballad — 

Come,  come,  I  say,  we've  had  enough 
Of  this  absurd  disjointed  stuff ; 
Let  us  get  on  to  that  affair. 


254  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

What  is  it  that  redeems  these  two  books,  giving  as  they 
do  in  this  way  the  effect  of  an  unwilling  and  badly 
planned  abridgment,  and  yet  even  in  their  abridged 
form  taking  up  nearly  half  the  poem  in  bringing  us  to 
the  period  where  the  real  central  action  begins  ?  What 
enables  us  to  read  them  with  an  interest  that  never 
quite  fails  and  sometimes  rises  into  keen  enjoyment  ? 
The  answer  is  not  single.  Partly  it  is  the  uniform 
grace  and  finish  of  the  language,  that  exquisite  Greek 
which  works  in  precious  stone  where  other  languages 
have  to  make  what  they  can  of  ordinary  pebbles. 
Partly  it  is  the  inherent  and  unsurpassed  interest  of 
the  story  as  a  mere  chronicle  of  adventures.  Partly 
it  is  the  pieces  of  lovely  detail,  descriptions  and  com- 
parisons and,  less  often,  reflections,  which  make  the 
Argonautica  so  quotable,  and  make  it  seem  in  quota- 
tions so  much  finer  than  it  actually  is.  Partly  too  it 
is  because  we  know  that  the  Medea  and  Jason  story  is 
on  its  way,  and  look  forward  to  it  so  keenly  that  we 
would  not  hurry  on  to  it,  but  rather  welcome  than 
deprecate  the  successive  delays  through  which  we  are 
brought  up  towards  it. 

It  would  take  too  long  now  to  analyse  however 
briefly  the  contents  of  these  two  books ;  but  it  would 
be  only  through  such  an  analysis  that  one  could  bring 
out  the  immense  pains  taken  by  Apollonius  to  avoid 
the  monotony  of  a  chronicle  poem,  his  resourcefulness 
in  varying  the  treatment  and  interspersing  it  with 
fresh  motives,  and  yet  the  futility  in  the  upshot  of  all 
that  labour  and  resource,  because  the  bones  of  the 
poem  are  wrong,  its  organic  structure  faulty.     Struc- 


THE    FALSE    START  255 

turally,  as  a  matter  of  composition,  the  Argonautica  is 
judged  and  condemned  on  the  first  two  hundred  and 
fifty  lines.  It  is  one  of  the  qualities  of  all  really  great 
poetry  that  it  strikes  its  note,  sets  its  scene,  gets  its 
action  arranged  and  its  movement  determined,  at  once 
and  with  complete  certainty.  Great  artists  know  this 
by  instinct ;  and  where  we  can  trace  their  handling  and 
construction  through  successive  works,  we  can  see  them 
lay  more  and  more  stress  on  this  point,  and  sacrifice 
more  and  more  to  make  it,  knowing  well  that  it  is  worth 
more  than  they  can  possibly  spend  on  it.  Here  it  is  that 
Apollonius  goes  hopelessly  wrong ;  and  this  is  not  from 
any  vicious  convention  common  to  him  with  the  Alexan- 
drian school,  nor  yet  from  any  principle  inherent  in 
his  own  new  method ;  it  is  simply  from  his  being  an 
inferior  artist.  These  first  two  hundred  and  fifty  lines, 
if  compared,  not  to  say  with  the  supreme  art  of  Homer 
or  Virgil  or  Milton,  but  with  the  sound  workmanlike 
art  of  quite  secondary  poets,  are  simply  deplorable. 
First  there  is  the  formal  invocation;  this  had  to  be 
there,  and  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  four  lines.  Then 
follows  a  sort  of  tragic  prologue,  reproducing  quite 
unnecessarily  one  of  the  worst  concessions  that  the 
Attic  drama  made  in  its  decline  to  what  were,  or  were 
thought  to  be,  the  exigencies  of  the  theatre;  then 
more  than  two  hundred  lines  of  a  catalogue,  a  dan- 
gerous thing  anywhere  and  requiring  immense  skill  to 
lift  into  the  movement  of  a  poem,  but  here  perfectly 
benumbing  and  lowering  in  its  effect ;  "  it  strikes  a  man 
more  dead,"  in  Touchstone's  phrase,  "than  a  great 
reckoning  in  a  little  room."     "  Truly,"  Touchstone  goes 


256  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

on,  "  I  would  the  gods  had  made  thee  poetical."  Only 
at  the  two  hundred  and  thirty-fourth  line  does 
ApoUonius  at  last  get  launched  on  his  poem,  and 
even  then  it  creaks  and  groans  before  it  begins  to 
move.  It  is  symptomatic  that  the  first  piece  of  de- 
liberate ornament  in  it — and  it  is  the  kind  of  ornament 
which  he  elsewhere  uses  most  beautifully — is  awkward 
and  inappropriate.  The  grief  of  the  mother  of  one  of 
the  Argonauts  as  she  parts  from  her  son  is  compared, 
in  an  elaborate  simile,  to  the  grief  of  a  stepmothered 
girl  sobbing  on  the  bosom  of  her  old  nurse — a  simile 
that  illustrates  nothing,  either  by  likeness  or  by  con- 
trast. This  is  not  so  much  failure  in  poetical  power 
— though  it  is  that  too — as  failure  in  ordinary  in- 
telligence. 

To  a  certain  degree,  indeed,  this  same  failure  in 
intelligence  pervades  the  whole  poem  as  regards  the 
application  and  setting  of  ornament.  Many  of  Virgil's 
most  exquisite  passages  of  ornament  are  taken  bodily 
from  Apollonius ;  we  shall  uniformly  find  that  he  gives 
them  a  new  and  heightened  value,  the  value  that 
ornament  takes  by  being  in  the  right  place.  One  or 
two  instances  will  bring  this  out  very  clearly.  In  a 
very  beautiful  passage  in  the  fourth  book  of  the 
Argonautica,  when  the  Argonauts  have  been  toiling  for 
many  days  waterless  through  the  terrible  Libyan  desert, 
the  night-wind  brings  to  them  a  mysterious  sound  as 
of  steps  moving  through  the  sand.  Five  of  them 
start  out  to  see ;  and  Lynceus  the  keen-sighted  "  now 
thought  he  saw  Heracles  alone,  far  away  over  the 
endless  land,  in  such  wise  as  a  man  sees  or  thinks 


APPLIED    ORNAMENT  257 

he  sees  the  new  moon  through  a  mist."  The  simile  is 
beautiful  in  itself,  but  not  specially  appropriate ;  there 
was  nothing  ghostly  about  Heracles :  the  ornament  is 
otiose,  for  it  adds  no  light  and  gives  no  thrill.  Virgil 
took  it  and  transfigured  it,  in  the  immortal  passage 
where  Aeneas  sees  the  faint  ghost  of  Dido  moving 
through  the  myrtle-forest  in  the  dusk  of  the  under- 
world. Or  take  another  instance  almost  as  striking. 
As  Medea  and  Jason  "  at  the  hour,"  says  ApoUonius, 
"  when  huntsmen  were  shaking  sleep  from  their  eyes," 
a  little  before  dawn,  approach  the  dragon  that  guards 
the  Golden  Fleece,  he  utters  a  dreadful  hissing  scream : 
"  so  that  the  grove  and  the  long  banks  of  the  river 
echoed  strangely  around:  even  they  heard  it  who 
dwelt  in  the  Colchian  land  far  from  Aea  .  .  .  and 
women  still  in  childbed  started  up  and  cast  their  arms 
in  agony  about  their  infants  who  were  sleeping  in  the 
fold  of  their  arms  and  leapt  at  the  scream."  Here 
again  Virgil  copies  ApoUonius  in  the  splendid  descrip- 
tion of  the  trumpet-blast  of  Allecto  in  the  seventh 
Aeneid  (11.  514-518)  that  roars  through  all  the  deep 
woodland  and  is  heard  by  the  water  of  Nar  and  the 
springs  of  Velinus,  and  frightened  mothers  clasp  their 
children  close  to  their  breast.  The  beauty  of  the 
picture  in  ApoUonius,  in  spite  of  his  breaking  it  up 
by  three  lines  of  quite  irrelevant  geography,  is  great ; 
yet  somehow  it  fails  to  stir  us,  and  when  we  ask  our- 
selves why,  the  reason  is  at  once  clear.  Nothing  came 
of  this  dreadful  sound;  it  is  heard,  he  tells  us,  all 
over  Colchis,  and  yet  it  does  not  awaken  Aeetes  or 
a  soul  in  the  city.     It  is  the  mere  painted  picture 

B 


258  APOLLONIUS    RHODIUS 

of   a  sound;    there  is  no  thought,  no  shaping  ima- 
gination, behind  the  ornament. 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  instances ;  and  one  turns 
gladly  from  these  ambitious  failures — which  yet,  like 
the  large  ambitious  failure  of  the  whole  poem  itself,  are 
the  preludes  of  a  new  and  great  poetry,  the  clouded 
lights  not  of  evening  but  of  dawn — to  other  passages 
where    a    true    and    exquisite    feeling   for    nature    is 
expressed  in  language   all  but  faultless.      Such  are 
the   descriptions  —  pictures    alike    pure  in    line    and 
lovely    in    colour — of  dawn  kindling  on  the  highest 
crags  of  Pelion,  and  far  below,  the  soft  heaving  of 
the  morning  seas  (i.   519—521);  and  again,  daylight 
breaking  high  up  in  the  sky,  and  the  grey  roads  be- 
coming luminous,  and  the  level  dew-drenched  meadows 
glimmering  to  the  dawn  (i.  1280-82);  and  once  more, 
full  morning,  with  the  shredded  night  flying  out  of 
the  sky,  and  the  island  beaches  and  dewy  field-tracks 
laughing   back    to  the   sunrise  (iv.  1170-72);  or  of 
the   afternoon  shadows,  when  the  day  has  ceased  to 
stand  still,  slowly  advancing  over  the  cornfields  at  the 
foot  of  the  cliffs  (i.  450-452) ;  or  the  picture,  sharply 
etched  and  vivid,  of  the  wind  rising  at  night  after  a 
heavy  snowfall  and  blowing  the  clouds  away,  so  that 
the    whole    sky   is    a    clear   blackness  crowded   with 
glittering  stars  (iii.   1359-1362).     The  quick  sensi- 
tiveness and  skill  of  handling  shown  in  passages  like 
these  (and  there  are  many)  sometimes  lends  itself  to 
weird  effects,  unique  in  ancient  poetry  and  reminding 
one  of  the  great  modern  romanticists.     Such  is  the 
remarkable  description  of  the  Black  Country  of  the 


PICTORIAL   IMAGINATION  259 

Chalybes,  that  sent  its  steel  over  the  Mediterranean 
world  (ii.  1002-8);  an  ancient  Pittsburg  or  Middles- 
borough,  a  land  which  has  to  import  all  its  food,  with- 
out tillage  or  pasturage,  where  labour  in  the  mines 
and  furnaces  goes  on  continuously  by  night  and  day 
under  an  unlifting  canopy  of  smoke  and  amid  a  lurid 
glow  of  flame.  As  unique  as  that  picture,  and  even 
more  startling,  is  another,  further  on  in  the  same  book 
(ii.  1247-1259),  where  for  once  at  least  daring  imagi- 
nation has  succeeded  triumphantly  in  making  weird 
and  awful  what  might  easily  have  been  merely  grotesque 
or  silly.  That  is  the  sight  that  the  Argonauts  have 
of  the  eagle  of  Prometheus,  rushing  overhead  like 
some  great  aeroplane,  the  wind  of  its  pinions  laying  all 
their  sails  aback  as  it  passed  overhead  with  incredible 
speed ;  "  strange-shaped,  not  like  a  bird,  but  the 
feathers  pulsed  like  oars  " ;  it  rose  out  of  the  evening 
dusk,  hurtled  over  them,  and  melted  into  the  dusk 
again,  and  a  little  after  came  a  great  cry  from  the 
mountain,  that  rang  through  all  the  heaven.  There 
had  been  nothing  so  daring  since  Aeschylus :  it  must 
needs  make  us  wonder  what  Apollonius  could  have 
done  if  he  had  trusted  the  romantic  impulse  and  let 
himself  go. 

As  it  was,  the  romantic  impulse  works  in  him 
intermittently;  it  is  timorous  and  discontinuous; 
partly  because  tradition  was  too  strong  for  him, 
partly  because  of  another  impulse  which  crossed  and 
thwarted  it.  This  was  the  impulse  towards  realism 
which  he  shared  with  the  whole  of  the  Alexandrians, 
and  which  meant  both  in  him  and  them,  as  I  have 


APOLLONIUS    RHODIUS 

again  and  again  insisted,  the  attempt  to  get  poetry 
back  into  an  organic  relation  with  life.  If  I  seem  to 
repeat  this  too  often,  it  is  because  the  tendency  to 
forget  it  is  so  great ;  and  if  we  forget  this  we  shall 
never  understand  the  Alexandrians,  and  which  is  more 
important  still,  never  understand  what  the  progress  of 
poetry  actually  was  on  its  movement  from  Hellas  to 
the  West. 

But  Apollonius  differed  from  the  older  Alexandrians 
— and  from  his  own  successors,  so  far  as  we  know 
anything  about  these,  as  well — in  being  essentially  and 
primarily  a  romanticist.  His  divergences  into  realism 
are  generally  not  very  happy;  his  heart  is  not  in 
them,  and  they  sound  out  of  tone ;  his  voice  goes  flat, 
he  becomes  here  and  there  almost  vulgar.  His  worst 
failure  in  the  whole  poem  is  where,  in  the  episode  of 
the  visit  of  Hera  and  Athena  to  Aphrodite  at  the 
beginning  of  Book  III.,  he  tries  to  galvanise  the 
obsolete  epic  machinery  into  new  life  by  introducing 
into  it  a  sort  of  bourgeois  detail.  The  description  of 
Aphrodite  "  sitting  on  a  chair  on  castors  opposite  the 
door"  and  hastily  putting  up  her  half-finished  plaits 
into  a  coil  with  both  her  hands  that  she  may  attend 
to  her  visitors,  brings  us  into  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Adoniazusae ;  and  Theocritus  would  have  done  it  ex- 
quisitely; where  it  comes,  it  is  dreadful.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  romantic  passages  in  Apollonius,  even  when 
irrelevant,  are  always  beautiful  in  themselves :  they  are 
sometimes  in  the  poem  rather  than  of  it,  but  they 
hang  in  it  like  jewels.  Such  for  instance  is  the  strange 
little  vignette  of  the  girl  watching  the  full  moon  rise 


IMAGINATIVE  VISION  261 

from  her  bedchamber,  and  catching  the  moonlight  in 
the  folds  of  her  thin  smock  (iv.  167-9) — singularly 
like,  though  with  a  difference,  the  scene  of  Madeline's 
undressing  in  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  familiar  not  only 
in  the  poem  but  in  the  visual  interpretation  of  it 
given  by  Millais  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
romantic  of  his  pictures.  Such  again,  but  here  with 
a  power  and  amplitude  that  raises  it  to  the  height  of 
classical  romance,  is  the  description  of  the  world  seen 
from  the  gates  of  heaven,  outside  of  the  celestial  palace 
with  its  encompassing  gardens  and  orchards.  It  comes 
with  the  more  startling  effect  at  the  end  of  an  episode 
where  Apollonius  had  been  at  his  unhappiest,  that  of 
the  scene  among  the  three  goddesses,  where  the  epic 
machinery  is  used  mechanically  and  without  convic- 
tion, and  the  attempt  to  give  it  new  vitality  by  render- 
ing it  with  a  modern  colour  and  surroundings  only 
makes  it  silly  without  making  it  romantic.  All  of  a 
sudden  at  the  end  of  this  episode  come  the  wonderful 
lines  (iii.  160-166)  with  their  vision,  as  clear  as  in  a 
picture,  of  the  whole  of  middle-earth  as  it  lies  under 
the  cope  of  heaven.  It  half  anticipates  the  magnifi- 
cent passage  in  Sigurd  the  Volsung  where  Sigurd  and 
Brynhild  look  down  from  the  head  of  Hindfell 
upon  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  It  is  possible  even 
that  in  Morris's  mind  there  may  have  been  some 
recollection  and  suggestion  surviving  and  renewing 
itself  from  the  years  long  before  when  he  had  read 
Apollonius  for  his  own  poem  of  the  Golden  Fleece. 
But  if  so,  we  must  notice  once  again  how  the  great 
poet  gives  a  wholly  new  value  to  what  he  takes  from 


262  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

an  inferior  predecessor.     The  passage  in  Sigurd  comes 

exactly  where  it  ought,  and  is  exactly  right,  exactly  in 

tone : — 

For  far  away  beneath  them  lie  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth, 

And  the  garths  of  men-folk's  dwellings  and  the  streams  that  water 

them, 
And  the  rich  and  plenteous  acres,  and  the  silver  ocean's  hem, 
And  the  woodland  wastes  and  the  mountains,  and  all  that  holdeth 

all; 
The  house  and  the  ship  and  the  island,  the  loom  and  the  mine  and 

the  stall, 
The  beds  of  bane  and  healing,  the  crafts  that  slay  and  save, 
The  temple  of  God  and  the  Doom-ring,  the  cradle  and  the  grave. 

The  lines  of  ApoUonius,  which  are  in  some  sense  the 
germ  or  original  of  these,  are  as  follows : — 

— evOev  Se  KaTai/Bdrig  eo-rl  KeXeuOo^ 
ovpavlri,  Soico  Se  iroXoi  ai^e-^ovcri  Kaprjva 
ovpecov  rikL^cLTWv,  Kopv(pai  -^Oovog,  ij-^i  r   aepOeig 
jJeXfo?  irpcoTrjariv  epevOerai  aKTiveaaiv. 
veioOi  S^  aX\oT€  yaia  (pepkcr^io^  aa-rea  t    avSpcov 
(paivero  kou  Trora/ULcov  lepoi  poot,  aWore  ^*  avre 
aKpieg,  ajuLCpi  Se  TrovTog  av   alQepa  iroWov  lovri. 

I  do  not  add  any  Enghsh  rendering  of  the  lines,  for  their 
clear  beauty  and  imaginative  quality  depend  so  largely 
on  their  actual  form  and  music  that  a  translation  would 
be  blurred  and  disappointing.  They  reach  perhaps 
the  highest  point  of  imaginative  value  touched  in  the 
Argonautica. 

And  in  one  way  they  come  where  they  do  appro- 
priately ;  for  they  stand  at  the  opening  of  the  Jason 
and  Medea  episode  in  which  the  romanticism  of 
ApoUonius  is  concentrated,  and  for  the  sake  of  which, 
one  might  say,  the  whole  poem   exists.      All  critics 


MEDEA   AND   DIDO  263 

are  agreed  as  to  the  grace  and  charm,  the  delicate 
sensibility  and  romantic  beauty  of  this  famous  episode. 
Virgil  here  did  not  better  his  model;  he  diverged 
from  it  and  made  it  into  something  different,  some- 
thing greater  indeed,  deeper  and  more  majestic,  but 
hardly  more  beautiful.  In  both  cases  it  is  interesting 
to  notice  how  the  poet  has  lavished  his  art  on  the 
portraiture  of  the  woman  and  left  the  man  to  shift 
for  himself,  a  little  inadequate,  a  little  unsympathetic. 
In  both  cases  the  art  proved  greater  than  the  artist. 
We  feel  with  Jason  something  of  the  same  impatience 
that  we  feel  with  Aeneas.  Both  keep  their  heads, 
both  seem  cold  and  selfish  in  contrast  with  the  burn- 
ing surrender  of  Medea  and  Dido.  Aeneas  indeed  is 
a  man  of  sorrows,  bearing  on  his  shoulders  not  only 
the  destinies  of  a  future  empire,  but  the  burden  of  a 
wrecked  life  :  he  is  "  widower  Aeneas,"  as  Sebastian  calls 
him  in  The  Tempest,  in  a  passage  remarkable  as  being 
the  single  piece  of  Virgilian  criticism  ever  made  by  a 
poet  as  great  as  Virgil ;  and  his  neque  haec  in  foedera 
veni  comes  from  him  with  a  solemnity  that  makes  one 
feel  and  understand  how  to  him  love  might  be  a  little 
thing.  "In  me  thou  see's t  the  glowing  of  such  fire 
that  on  the  ashes  of  his  youth  doth  lie."  For  Jason, 
in  all  the  splendour  of  his  brilliant  youth,  we  can  feel 
less  sympathy;  nor  does  Apollonius  leave  us  sure 
whether  his  portraiture  shows  some  bluntness  of  feel- 
ing or  is  a  piece  of  delicate  though  tragic  psychology. 
To  us  at  all  events  the  later  tragedy  casts  its  shadow 
dark  over  the  love-scene  in  Colchis.  But  that  tragedy 
is  outside  of  the  scheme  of  the  Argonautica,  and  ignored 


264  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

in  it ;  unless  indeed  there  be  just  one  fugitive  veiled 
allusion  to  it  in  the  passage  where  Jason,  pleading 
with  Medea,  cites  to  her  the  example  of  Ariadne,  as 
though  suggesting  indirectly,  to  himself  or  to  us,  that 
Ariadne  was  not  the  only  princess  who  would  save  her 
lover's  life,  and  give  everything  to  him,  only  to  be 
abandoned. 

Apart  from  this,  the  whole  episode  is  on  a  high, 
almost  on  the  highest  level.  The  splendid  description 
of  night  with  which  it  opens  is  one  of  the  passages 
copied  by  Virgil  in  the  well-known  and  magical  lines 
of  the  fourth  Aeneid  beginning  Nox  erat  et  placidum 
carpehant  fessa  soporem,  and  concentrated  by  him  as 
usual  to  a  greater  splendour,  though  for  once  not 
raised  to  a  higher  or  more  apt  beauty,  and  scarcely 
conveying  with  the  same  overpowering  effect  the  sense 
of  vast  stillness  enveloping  alike  those  who  were  asleep 
and  those  who  were  awake.  "  Night  drew  her  shadow 
across  the  world :  sailors  at  sea  gazed  from  their  ships 
at  Helice  and  the  stars  in  Orion ;  wayfarer  and  watch- 
man at  the  gates  longed  to  be  asleep ;  the  mother 
whose  children  were  dead  lay  wrapped  in  heavy 
slumber;  not  a  dog  barked  in  the  town,  not  a  foot- 
fall sounded  in  the  street :  silence  filled  the  blackness 
of  the  night  " :  at  non  infelix  animi — all  this  vast 
weight  of  silence  surrounded  the  sleepless  passion  of 
one  heart.  Praise  of  this  would  be  almost  an  imper- 
tinence ;  or  of  the  passage  later  (one  of  the  most 
moving  in  poetry),  where  Medea  recoils  from  the 
thought  of  killing  herself  as  she  thinks  of  all  the 
joys  of  living,  and  of  her  own  childhood,  "  and  the 


THE   FINDING   OF   ROMANCE       265 

sun  was  sweeter  to  behold " ;  or  of  the  meeting  of 
the  lovers  in  the  temple :  rw  S'  aveto  koI  avavSoi — both 
speechless  and  silent,  "  like  trees  that  stand  silent  side 
by  side  in  the  stillness,  till  a  breath  of  wind  comes 
to  rustle  them,  and  then  they  murmur  endlessly,  as 
these  two  were  soon  to  find  voice  under  the  breath 
of  Love." 

These  and  others  are  notable  passages ;  but  almost 
throughout,  Apollonius  here  is  at  his  best ;  he  has 
found  romance,  he  has  created  the  romantic  treat- 
ment. And  as  long  as  this  impulse  lasts  and  carries 
him  on,  the  poem  continues  to  move  in  a  higher  air. 
The  return  of  the  Argonauts,  up  to  the  point  at  which 
they  reach  the  land  of  the  Phaeacians  and  the 
marriage  of  Jason  and  Medea  is  consummated,  is,  as 
romantic  narrative,  on  a  level  not  unworthy  of  the 
central  episode.  He  is  no  longer  hampered  by  that 
Alexandrian  tradition  of  the  chronicle-narrative  which 
had  encrusted  the  outward  voyage  of  Books  I.  and  II. 
with  such  unmanageable  masses  of  material — history, 
geography,  archaeology.  He  can  let  his  imagination 
go.  The  result  may  be  a  little  too  like  an  Arabian 
Tale,  a  voyage  of  Sindbad  or  Judar ;  but  it  is  full  of 
spirit  and  excitement  and  the  sense  of  boundless 
strangeness  ;  not  the  less  so  that  the  geography  is 
perfectly  delirious.  The  obstinate  belief  in  some 
undiscoverable  North-West  passage  is  mixed  up  to 
such  a  degree  with  fragmentary  information  from 
misunderstood  maps  that  we  seem  to  be  in  a  wild 
dream.  Rivers  flow  both  ways  indifferently,  and 
communicate  with  one  another   through  a  maze  of 

R  2 


^66  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

channels.  The  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  the  Po  and 
the  Adige  and  the  Rhone,  are  all  faintly  identifiable 
in  this  strange  network  of  navigable  streams  and  lakes, 
fed  from  springs  "  in  a  land  far  away,  where  are  the 
portals  and  the  habitations  of  Night."  When  at  last 
the  Argonauts  get  past  these  into  the  Odyssean 
wonderland,  and  come  to  the  palace  of  Circe  and 
the  island  of  the  Sirens  and  the  court  of  Phaeacia, 
it  is  almost  like  a  return  to  real  life. 

But  the  romantic  impulse  which  had  carried  on  the 
poem  so  far  does  not  last  out ;  and  Apollonius  has  to 
pay  the  price  for  his  want  of  constructive  power,  for 
the  failure  of  a  guiding  plan.  His  imagination  rapidly 
ebbs  away,  and  the  poem  dwindles  and  stops.  At  the 
end  the  method  of  chronicle -romance  is  resumed,  but 
he  has  no  heart  in  it ;  "  there  were  no  further  adven- 
tures," he  ends,  "  until  they  reached  home."  Never 
poem  had  a  flatter  or  lamer  ending. 

The  point  at  which  the  Argonautica  ends  corre- 
sponds pretty  nearly  to  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
book  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  Jason ;  and  up  to  this  point 
the  two  poems  are  approximately  on  the  same  scale : 
6000  lines  of  Apollonius  as  against  7500  of  Morris. 
But  that  Morris,  or  that  any  poet  with  the  instinct  for 
narrative  and  the  gift  of  construction,  would  have 
stopped  at  this  point  is  unimaginable.  Indeed,  few 
studies  in  poetry  could  be  either  more  interesting  or 
more  instructive  than  to  lay  these  two  poems  side  by 
side  and  observe  the  differences  of  handling,  alike  in 
the  main  construction  and  the  detailed  evolution  of 
the  poem ;  to  consider  likewise  how  far  the  failure  of 


KOMANCE   AND   LYRIC  267 

ApoUonius  is  due  to  his  having  (like  all  explorers  in 
the  realm  of  poetry)  no  very  clear  conception  of  what 
he  meant  to  do,  how  far  to  mere  weakness,  and  how 
far  to  the  hampering  and  overpowering  classical 
tradition.  This  there  is  no  opportunity  to  do  here ; 
but  one  point  of  special  interest  may  be  mentioned : 
that  is,  the  method  in  which  the  romantic  epic  brings 
itself  into  relation  with  the  lyric.  Both  poems  in- 
clude songs  of  Orpheus  to  his  fellow- Argonauts.  In 
ApoUonius  there  are  two:  the  one,  a  song  of  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  a  theogony,  sung  by  him  on 
the  Argo  at  the  beginning  of  its  outward  voyage ;  the 
other,  a  hymn  to  Apollo,  sung  by  him  at  a  sacrifice 
made  by  the  Argonauts  on  the  sacred  island  of 
Thynias  in  the  Euxine.  Both  of  them,  it  may  be 
noted  in  passing,  were  taken  up  and  used  by  Virgil — 
the  former  in  the  song  of  Silenus  in  the  sixth  Eclogue, 
the  latter  in  the  hymn  to  Hercules  in  the  eighth 
Aeneid ;  in  the  latter,  Virgil  has  copied  the  adroit 
device  by  which,  through  a  change  from  the  third 
person  into  the  second,  the  narrative  slides  into  a 
direct  lyric ;  in  the  former,  both  ApoUonius  and  Virgil 
use  the  form  of  the  indirect  or  reported  lyric  (namque 
canehat  uti — rjei^ev  ^'  o)?),  a  rather  dangerous  experiment, 
with  great  skill  and  beauty.  Morris,  with  a  longer 
tradition  behind  him,  was  able  to  adopt  a  freer 
handling.  The  lyrics  in  Jason — among  the  loveHest 
in  English — are  interposed  in  the  narrative,  and  the 
difference  further  emphasised  by  a  change  of  metre. 
Five  of  them  are  sung  by  Orpheus;  and  in  each 
case  they  give  the  momentary  uplifting  and  concen- 


268  APOLLONIUS   RHODIUS 

tration  of  emotion,  they  make  the  sliding  chain  of 
the  narrative  blaze  into  a  jewel.     The  greater  freedom 
of  modern  romance  allows  a  poet  to  do  many  things 
which  in  its  beginnings,  when  it  was   still   tentative 
and  still  hampered  by  the  full  weight  of  the  classical 
tradition,  seemed  impossible.     On  this  particular  point 
it  is  noticeable  that  Chaucer  did    not  think  fit  to 
vary  the  metre  for  the  lyrics  in  Troilus  and  Creseide. 
The  more  nearly  a  romance  approaches  the  epic  scale 
and  movement,  the  more  necessary  it  would  seem  to 
be    that   it   should    preserve    a    continuous    metrical 
texture.     The  intercalated  lyric  seems  only  to  find  its 
place  in  a  narrative  poem  which  does  not  attempt  to 
rise  beyond  romance.     If  we  study  the   practice  of 
Morris  we  shall  see  that  he  uses  the  interposed  lyric 
less  and  less  in  the  Earthly  Paradise  as  his  mind,  under 
the  influence  of  the  great  Icelandic  epic,  moves  towards 
the  epic  handling  and  environment  of  life.     In  his 
own  epic  of  Sigurd  the   Volsung  he  discards   it   alto- 
gether.    The  song  of  Orpheus  in  the  first  book  of  the 
Argonautica  (that  describing  the  Creation  and  the  birth 
of  the  Gods)  stands  midway  in  method  between  the 
frankly  intercalated  lyrics  of  the  Jason  and  the  song 
of  Gunnar  in  Atli's  worm-pit,  where  the  subject  is  the 
same  as  that  of  Orpheus,  but  the  lyric  is  welded  into 
the  structure  of  the  epic,  and  is  no  longer  episodic 
ornament  (however  beautiful  and  apt)  but  organic. 

We  must  never  forget  with  Apollonius  that  he  was 
attempting  something  quite  new ;  he  was  not  only  an 
innovator  but  a  beginner,  working  experimentally  and 
tentatively  towards  an  end  not  distinctly  seen — an  end 


ROMANCE   AND   EPIC 

which  could  not  well  be  distinctly  seen  until  it  should 
have  been  actually  reached.  His  failure  counts  as  the 
equivalent  of  many  successes ;  for  he  opened  a  new  door 
to  poetry,  though  he  did  not  succeed  in  passing  fully 
through  it.  The  marriage  of  epic  and  romance  was 
effected  by  him,  though  it  was,  like  the  marriage  of 
Jason  and  Medea  in  his  own  poem,  effected  hastily 
and  prematurely.  It  had  to  be  done  then  somehow  if 
it  was  to  be  done  at  all.  Those  who  have  read  the 
Argonautica  cannot  fail  to  remember  the  passage,  one 
of  the  finest  in  the  whole  poem  alike  for  dramatic 
value  and  for  beauty  of  treatment.  The  Colchian 
host  have  come  to  Phaeacia  to  claim  back  the  fugitive. 
Medea  throws  herself  in  the  most  touching  way  on 
the  mercy  of  Queen  Arete,  who  pleads  for  her  with 
Alcinous.  He  gives  his  judgment :  "  If  she  be  yet  a 
maid,  they  shall  carry  her  back  to  her  father ;  but  if 
she  share  a  husband's  bed  I  will  not  separate  her  from 
her  lord,  nor  if  she  carry  a  child  within  her  womb 
will  I  give  her  up  to  her  enemies."  Arete  at  once 
sends  word  to  Jason  and  Medea ;  and  they  are  hastily 
married  with  "  such  maimed  rites "  as  the  sudden 
occasion  allows ;  Orpheus  sings  before  the  bridal  bower, 
but  round  it  all  night  are  the  Argonaut  spearmen, 
guarding  it  from  the  Colchians.  "  Not  now  was  the 
hero,  the  son  of  Aeson,  desirous  to  complete  his 
marriage,  but  in  the  halls  of  his  father  when  he  should 
return  to  lolcos;  and  Medea  also  was  of  like  mind 
with  him  " — notice  how  the  two  are  thought  of  still  as 
separate  and  independent — "  yet  necessity  drove  them 
to  marry  there  and  then.     So  is  it  that  we  tribes  of 


270  APOLLONIUS    RHODIUS 

harassed  mankind  never  plant  a  foot  full  on  delight, 
but  ever  some  sharp  pang  comes  alongside  of  our 
felicities."  In  such  haste  as  this,  and  with  such 
allayed  and  shaken  happiness,  the  union  of  epic  and 
romance  was  effected  by  Apollonius.  But  even  so  the 
two  were  united,  and  became  one  flesh. 

For  a  time  the  marriage  was  without  issue ;  at  least 
so  it  would  appear.  Apollonius  did  not  give  a  new 
course  to  Greek  poetry ;  for  Greek  poetry  was  begin- 
ning to  fade  away  and  die.  Such  later  attempts  as 
were  made  in  the  new  manner  have  disappeared.  The 
Messeniaca  of  Rhianus,  a  younger  contemporary,  only 
known  now  by  a  few  imponderable  fragments,  seems 
to  have  treated  the  chronicle-epic  with  some  approach 
to  the  romantic  manner.  I  only  mention  it  here  be- 
cause its  story,  like  that  of  the  Argonautica,  was  one  of 
those  selected  by  Morris  when  he  first  conceived  the 
scheme  of  the  Earthly  Paradise.  Both  were  written 
by  him  in  the  same  year,  and  neither  appeared  in  the 
Earthly  Paradise  as  it  took  its  final  shape.  The  Life 
and  Death  of  Jason  outgrew  its  first  scope  and  be- 
came a  separate  work ;  the  Aristomenes  was  never 
finished  and  remains  still  unpublished.  Morris  had 
become  dissatisfied  with  it,  feeling  the  subject  was  too 
historical  for  the  free  play  of  the  romantic  method. 
Probably  this  was  the  case  with  the  poem  of  Rhianus 
also.  The  romance  in  later  Greek  literature  divorced 
itself  from  the  poetical  forms  of  the  epic  and  took  to 
prose  as  the  vehicle  for  imaginative  narrative  com- 
bining the  interests  of  love  and  adventure.  The 
true  successors  of  Apollonius  are  on  the  one  hand 


THE  REINSTATEMENT  OF  ROMANCE    271 

the  romantic  novel,  on  the  other,  Virgil  the  roman- 
ticist. 

In  studying  Theocritus  we  have  had  occasion  again 
and  again  to  notice  his  close  poetical  affinity  with 
Tennyson.  In  the  early  sixties  the  great  English 
idylist  had  come  to  a  pause  in  his  production  of 
poetry ;  the  idyllic  method  was  for  the  time  exhausted. 
It  was  then  that  Morris,  like  Apollonius,  but  with  a 
higher  genius  and  freer  movement,  reinstated  the  long 
narrative  poem,  the  romance  or  romantic  epic,  in  the 
poetry  of  England.  Like  Apollonius,  he  hardly 
founded  a  school ;  for  his  genius  was  in  this  as  in  other 
matters  unique  and  untransmissible.  The  differences 
are  larger  and  more  important  than  the  analogies 
between  the  two ;  yet  the  analogies  are  striking  and 
suggestive.  But  the  history  of  poetry  never  repeats 
itself  in  its  progress;  and  this  is  just  one  of  the 
reasons  why  poetry  is,  in  its  progress  no  less  than  in 
its  achieved  results,  so  endlessly  fascinating. 

When  we  speak  of  the  poetry  of  any  age,  or  of  any 
poet,  as  artificial,  we  perhaps  hardly  realise  how  fragile 
and  how  artificial  all  poetry  is.  Its  abiding  life  is  not 
here.  It  never  continues  in  one  stay.  Its  embodi- 
ments are  transitory,  and  its  light  has  no  sooner 
touched  any  one  point  than  it  begins,  in  the  same 
movement,  to  glide  off  it.  The  images  of  perfection 
which  it  successively  condenses  from  the  flying  vapours 
of  the  world  have  only  a  transcendental  permanence ; 
we  can  see  them  forming  and  melting  in  one  and  the 
same  breath.     In  the  earlier  Alexandrian  poetry  we 


272  APOLLONIUS    RHODIUS 

can  just  catch  a  last  condensation  of  the  Hellenic 
genius,  a  gleam  of  the  old  light  before  the  chill  came 
with  sunset  and  the  eastward-wheeling  earth  drove 
the  shadow  up  the  wall.  With  the  later  poets  of 
the  school  the  light  gradually  and  surely  disappears. 
Morning  was  kindling  elsewhere,  and  at  last  they  were 
left  with  the  night.  Sie  waren  Idngst  gestorhen,  und 
wussten  es  selber  kaum. 


To  conclude^  I  announce  what  comes  after  me, 

I  have  pressed  through  in  my  own  rights 

I  have  sung  the  body  and  the  soul,  war  and  peace  have  I  sung^  and 

the  songs  of  life  and  death. 
And  the  songs  of  birth,  and  shown  that  there  are  many  births. 

So  I  pass,  a  little  time  vocal,  visible,  contrary. 

Afterward  a  melodious  echo,  passionately  bent  for  (death  making 

me  really  undying), 
The  best  of  me  then  when  no  longer  visible,  for  toward  that  I  have 

been  incessantly  repairing. 

What  is  there  more,  that  I  lag  and  pause  and  crouch  extended  with 

unshut  mouth  ? 
Is  there  a  single  final  farewell  ? 

Remember  my  words,  I  may  again  return, 

I  love  you,  I  depart  from  materials, 

I  am  as  one  disembodied,  triumphant,  dead. 


Printed  by  Ballantyne,  Hanson  6«  Co. 
Edinburgh  &•  London 

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